


Echoes

by taralynden



Series: Story of a lifetime [2]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taralynden/pseuds/taralynden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of stories looking into the early stages of the Great War, before the events in <i>Story of a lifetime</i></p><p>Companion fic to the main fic, these stories give context to some characters in SoaL so are best read in conjunction with that :)</p><p>(Originally published 2010-2011)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The medic, 1

**Author's Note:**

> Posted with SoaL part 3 chapter 3 (i.e. chapter 13)

The shift was interminably slow. Breem after breem of watching the monitors, with the occasional break to change a filter or purge fluids or run an extra scan.

In fact, he had spent most of the shift idly composing a report on why qualified staff should be entirely exempt from this duty. Any tenth-vorn student could do all of this just as competently. He was a surgery specialist with nearly a century's qualified experience behind him - surely there was something else he could be doing?

Yet here he was, assigned to this boredom joor after joor, orn after orn.

"Ratchet?"

Looking up at the sound of his name, he saw a familiar figure slip in through the ward door.

"Blueflash." he nodded at the femme. "Looking for Scaler? He's not here."

She shook her head, glancing around.

"Just saw him a few breems ago, that's why I'm here. Busy shift?"

He gave her a sardonic look, waving a hand in the direction of his offline and therefore trouble-free charges.

"Busy as ever. What's up?"

"Scaler's got some news about that linking thing he's been working on. A group of us are going to meet him in the lab at Fourth Call. He wants you there too, since you two were the ones who figured it all out in the first place."

"Is that what he's saying?" Ratchet shook his head. "All I did was try to talk some sense into him a few times, and let him talk me into things when we were drunk. Spark stuff is too theoretical for me, I'll stick to surgery thanks."

"But you'll come?"

"He's catering?"

"Does that make a difference?" she teased.

"Maybe." he grinned back, then relented. "Ah, why not. I owe him for last week's teaching shift anyway."

She laughed.

"He said to remind you of that if you wouldn't come."

"Oh he did, did he? Well then maybe I should..."

He got no further as one of the monitors gave a low buzz.

One of his patients had suffered a sudden surge and had burst an energon line. Forgetting about Blueflash completely, he sounded the alarm for the on-call staff and grabbed his tools ready to start the vital surgery without delay.

This, of course, was why it was not a student on duty in the critical care ward and why it never would be.

* * *

Opening the lab door just a breem short of Sixth Call, he found the room was empty except for his two friends. They were cleaning up after what had apparently been a large and raucous party.

Blueflash smiled at him and he shrugged.

"Sorry I'm late."

"No problem, we knew you'd turn up eventually. How'd it go?"

He sighed, thinking briefly back to the long joors of tense emergency surgery with a patient who kept nearly offlining completely, then shut off that line of memory.

"He's back in CC. Hopefully this time he'll come through without any more glitches."

"Course he will." Scaler told him heartily, handing him an energon cube. "This time he had the best surgeon in the sector patching him up."

Ratchet snorted at that but took the praise without argument and tasted the energon. To his surprise it was proper high grade, not just the medical equivalent usually used for these impromptu parties.

"So what're you celebrating?"

Scaler grinned.

"I got a grant to expand to full trials."

"That was quick. What's the catch?"

"Who says there is one?"

"Me. The research board _never_ gives out grants that easy."

"Maybe you just don't have my charm." Scaler teased.

Ratchet just looked at him, and Scaler sighed.

"Okay, they want just one more trial done before they hand over the funds and resources. But it'll be easy. All I need to do is a trial with a dozen links. If I can do that, and break it again, and prove that it works then they'll sign off on the grant. See? It's basically mine."

Ratchet grimaced.

"You told me last time would be the last time."

"I thought it would. But this'll be it - definitely. Keylar introduced me to this other scientist, Shockwave, who thinks..."

"Wait a minute." Ratchet stopped him, alarmed by what he had heard in the code designation for this 'Shockwave'. "A military mech? Why're _they_ interested? I thought you were doing this for exploration crews?"

"I was. I mean, I still am. But Shockwave's been working on something similar, except his version isn't working so well. Oh stop looking so scandalised, Ratch - just think about it. If the mil-mechs had properly linked teams they'd be _much_ more effective."

"At what? Creating casualties for us to fix up?"

"Now you're being silly." Blueflash scolded him, refilling his cube and Scaler's. "Who're the military going to hurt? The war ended megavorns ago."

"They still bust each other up." Ratchet pointed out. "And then expect us to fix them. Besides - if they don't need to fight, why do they need to get better at it?"

"Shockwave's in this Decepticon faction." Scaler explained. "You know, the ones planning to go exploring?"

"Oh, speaking of that," Blueflash paused, dropping a pile of empty cubes into the recycling chute, "did you see the notice about the recall yet?"

"Another one?" Ratchet was surprised, simultaneously accessing the main message board. "But we just had one three vorns ago!"

The general recalls were held roughly every fifty vorns to update all field medics in the latest techniques and research. Attendance was compulsory. Anyone who did not attend would be stripped of their registration and not be able to access any of the clinics or medical suppliers until they returned to Ordan Helix for a refresher.

It meant that everyone could trust that their medics were completely up to date. But to have two in such a short period was unheard of, and from what he was reading this next one was scheduled to be in only two orns time.

"Why the short notice?" he demanded.

"You could read the schedule and find out." Scaler suggested.

"Or you could just tell me." Ratchet pointed out, unwilling to open the very large file attached to the memo.

"Fair enough. Basically, it's the Decepticons. Their leader... what's his des? Matador? Megawatt?"

"Megatron, isn't it?" Blueflash asked.

"Whatever." Scaler shrugged. "Anyway, he gave some big speech a few joors ago and said he was going to lead the Decepticons to a new future, starting in five orns time. But he's also talked to the Chief about getting all his staff checked out, and about getting some medics assigned to long-service duties with the Decepticons.

"Keylar's agreed to ask for volunteers from rank three and above, so everyone needs to come back here so mechs can volunteer if they choose and so the faculty can figure out new field rosters to cover those who are going. You could find yourself out in the field after all, Ratch."

Now that was an unpleasant notion.

Having the military mecha gone was good news, but he had no desire whatsoever to be stuck out at some poorly provisioned outpost with substandard equipment and no real clinic to work from. He was a specialist, and Ordan Helix was the only sensible place for him to be. Even so, he felt more positive about the whole thing.

"So why the huge data file?"

"It's got the specs for all the mil-mechs. We gotta do all those check-ups, remember?"

Ah. He knew there had to be a down side. It seemed he was going to be spending the next few orns learning about the finer points of military mech construction. But first, there was a more pressing matter to deal with.

"I don't suppose there's any chance I can get out of being part of your little test group this time?"

Scaler laughed and clapped him on the back.

"Why don't you have another drink and we'll talk about it?


	2. The medic, 2

The chiming of an incoming comm message woke him out of his recharge cycle and he fumbled at the connection to his recharge plate clumsily, wondering why he had allowed himself to go so deeply offline if he was on call. Then his processor came fully online and he remembered that he was not on duty.

So why did he have a text message flashing on his HUD telling him to contact the infirmary admissions hall?

Logging in to the terminal, he retrieved a text message from the mech on duty telling him that a patient of his had turned up at the gate. The mech was refusing to be seen to by anyone else or say what was wrong, and would not even enter the building. He smiled, able to guess who it would be, and sent a quick response that he was on his way.

Dabble and Longsider. They were the most peculiar mechs he had ever met, but they were also utterly harmless and oddly charming; completely eccentric, they chose to live out in the dead zone between Ordan Helix and the nearest city of Vestros, and they almost never ventured into town. Both had survived the last war, surviving by staying in hiding, a habit that they could not break and had no desire to try.

It had taken a near fatal malfunction to force one of them to come looking for help, in spite of the fact that they lived in the shadow of the only medical training facility on the planet. That orn, when Dabble had overcome his fears enough to enter the city to beg piteously for help, Ratchet had been on duty as senior-on-shift for the emergency department. He had tried to convince the distraught mech to bring his injured sparkmate to the infirmary, and when he had realised that this was simply not going to work he had decided that the only solution was to go out himself.

It had been his first trip outside the city limits and he had found the silence and lack of power in the dead zone rather intimidating, but Dabble had been so desperate for help and it was more than he could do to turn away from that need. Arriving at a junkpile that he had difficulty believing was actually their home he had found Longsider nearly offline with pain and the need to work had distracted him from the surroundings.

In the end, the damage had been embarrassingly simple to resolve: neither of them had had any maintenance for megavorns, and some vital connections had begun to rust. A bit of gentle filing, some resoldering and a lecture on the importance of regular visits to their mechanic, and he was done.

Or so he thought.

The two were embarrassingly grateful for his help, turning up many times over the following vorns to bring him little treats or catch up with him on his time off. And they loved telling him stories of the things they had seen in their long lifetimes.

But they would not remain in the city limits for more than a few breems at a time, and the very concept of actually living there sent them into hysterics. Did he not understand how many of their friends they had lost in cities, they asked him. Did he not see how dangerous it was to congregate in large numbers in a single place?

In truth, he knew he did not really understand.

He had been activated long after the onset of peace, and most of the mechs from that time period had already died through degradation of their systems. That Dabble and Longsider had survived so long was a miracle given how little maintenance they had had in their long lifespans. He kept trying to convince them to come back to civilisation where they would have better access to amenities that mechs of their age should not be without, though with little more success than they had in trying to convince him to abandon Ordan Helix and move in with them.

Ordan Helix was his home, and their hole in the ground was theirs.

In recent centuries, death through deterioration had been almost completely eradicated. With proper maintenance and upgrading it was conceivable for a mech to function comfortably for millions of vorns, not just the few thousand limit known by earlier generations.

It bothered him more than he could articulate that his friends would not take advantage of the chance to extend their own lives, that they could _choose_ to allow their systems to degrade to a point of eventual deactivation. They would not be charged for any basic level maintenance - that was a given right for any mech, courtesy of the High Council's benevolence - yet they refused any help, ever suspicious.

"Ratchet!"

He sighed to himself. Dabble was waiting impatiently out in the courtyard as always.

"Longsider again?" he asked, approaching. "What parts do I need?"

Dabble shook his head, grabbing his arm.

"No time, no time. Come - quickly."

"Wait, I haven't even got my tools with me!"

"No time, don't need them, _come_!"

* * *

Longsider was not injured.

The hasty trip - which had to be made in root mode since the dead zone had no proper roads - took him much further into the ruins than he had ever been before, to a desolate area that looked just the same as the rest of the wasteland around him. Longsider met them in the shadow of a tall spire and guided them over to a small depression where he was shown the broken remains of a newly crashed communications satellite.

Ratchet was not amused.

"You realise I have work to do, right?" he fumed, trying to keep his temper. "I can't just wander off for a couple of joors to look at ancient satellites that just _happen_ to fall out of orbit in the middle of nowhere. I'm supposed to be on duty in less than a breem. There aren't even any carrier signals out here so I can't even get an excuse in before my supervisor hits the roof!"

"But if we'd been injured you would've come, right?" Longsider checked. "Even though you had a shift?"

"But you're _not_ injured." Ratchet pointed out heatedly. "And if you _ever_ do this again when you're not, I'll never come again. Ever. You'll just have to come into the city like everyone else. Like any _sane_ mech. Primus! I mean it this time. Slag, I've got to get back to the infirmary.

He turned on his heel, but immediately the other two started to clamour on about the dangers of the city. He kept walking, but their piteously worried tones got through to him enough that he answered.

"I'm a medic - you know that. I need to be where my patients are."

"But something bad's happening." Dabble insisted. "We've seen hundreds of military flying overhead. _Hundreds_!"

"They're going for their checkups. They're expected there."

"But they'll blow everything up!" Longsider yelped.

Ratchet strode on, determined not to turn around.

"Look, I know things were bad in the war, but that was a long time ago now and anyway the mil-mechs were on _our_ side, remember? They protected us. Anyway, Megatron is taking the Decepticons away so there won't _be_ anymore fighting. The least we can do is check that his soldiers are in top condition before they leave. If you're so worried, shut yourselves in your little hole for a few orns until it's over. Then you won't have to worry about crashing satellites."

A hand grabbed at his arm and he turned to see Longsider looking at him anxiously.

"Can't you stay?"

"No. I slagging well _can't_ just..."

He broke off, seeing the confused hurt on their faces, and groaned to himself.

Shouting at these two was like scolding a sparkling just after activation - they understood you were upset with them but mostly only the tone penetrated, not the message. Modulating his tone, and reminding himself that it was not their fault that they were so paranoid, he tried to find just a little more patience.

"Look, don't worry. I'll come back in a couple of orns and check on you. I'll bring you some real energon and tell you all about the military leaving without damaging anything."

"We won't be here." Dabble told him anxiously. "We've got to find somewhere safer. Somewhere further away."

Ratchet frowned, caught by surprise.

"Why? Neither of you are up to any long distance travel."

"We can't stay here. It's too close."

"Too close to what?"

"The war." Longsider shuddered.

That was it; he gave up.

"There _is_ no war. It ended nearly twelve thousand vorns ago. You two have to accept that - we're _not_ going to be attacked. The Decepticons are leaving the planet, and that'll mean practically all of the military mechs are gone. Now stop upsetting yourselves. Calm down, get yourselves home and let me go back to the infirmary where I can do my job. I'll come back after next shift and tell you everything's okay."

The older mechs looked at each other unhappily, then Dabble sighed.

"Alright. We'll wait for one orn. No longer. But if you see anything, _anything_ \- you promise you'll come and find us?"

"I promise." Ratchet swore, certain that he would not have to fulfil that vow. "Now go inside and stop worrying about the military. This is all nothing, I'm sure of it."


	3. The medic, 3

A dozen different alarms brought him back online with an unpleasant jolt, and he cried out in pain. He was injured! Knowledge that he usually applied to others bubbled up unhelpfully, giving him long gory lists of what might be causing each problem - from pinched wires to loss of a limb and everything in between.

Trying to lift his head to work out where he was he found he was pinned under a pile of rubble, covered in debris of metal and stone and dust. His left leg had completely stopped responding to commands, and his right felt like it had been mashed flat. Even just accessing the links below his waist made his processor threaten to shut down with the pain.

Deliberately turning off his diagnostic programs for a moment, he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. Clearly he was not in the city, so where... ah.

Dabble and Longsider.

He had been out with them over that stupid satellite that they claimed had been deliberately shot down as part of some deeply subversive military plot. Then he had left them and tried to hurry back towards the towering city walls so he would not be too late for his shift.

Well, he could still see those walls in the distance. And now he remembered what had happened. As he had been running along he had tripped on a cracked bit of paving and catapulted himself headfirst into the corner of a small decaying shell of a building.

The building must have completely collapsed under the force of the impact. A lot of the structures out here were unstable from megavorns without maintenance following even more megavorns of damage, and he was usually very careful to pick a secure path if he did not have one of the others to guide him safely.

Not today, though. Today he had been too angry to be watching where he was going. And now he was hurt and needing help.

That thought stopped him cold.

There would _be_ no help: no-one knew where he was. No-one at all.

The staff at the admissions office had known he was heading their way, but he had never actually gone inside so he had never told anyone what he was doing. Nor would he have done so if he had entered the building, for that matter. Only Scaler knew he occasionally went into the dead zone, and his friend thought he was utterly mad to do it.

But Scaler would not be looking for him now, not even if he did not turn up for his shift. Everyone would be too busy with the arriving Decepticons.

The only ones who knew he was anywhere near here were Dabble and Longsider, and those two were so shaken up at the moment that they would take his non-appearance in a few joors as proof that everyone was being murdered by the military. It would only send them running from civilisation that much further.

Feeling himself start to tremble as he realised how much trouble he was truly in, he tried to reason with himself.

Obviously, there had to be a way out of this. It would just be too stupid to die like this. And oh what a slow, agonising death...

No. No, he was not even going to consider that. He had to think. What could he do? He was still in the dead zone, which meant no active communications line so he could not summon help. No-one would be wandering out this far from the city walls, so there was no point putting any hope into that either.

"Well." he muttered to himself, trying to get up some courage. "Seems to me, the only option is to get yourself out of this one. Right. Here we go."

* * *

"Never again." he promised himself. "Never again. Not leaving the city again. Not for anything. Not ever. Don't need field experience. Happy doing same old shifts. Do it forever, that's fine by me. Boring's good. I love being bored."

He was vaguely aware that he was not making much sense. He was equally aware that he did not really need to talk at all, since there was no-one to actually talk to. But it helped to have a distraction as he half-limped, half-dragged himself through the rubble towards the blessedly beautiful silver walls ahead.

It had taken a long time to get himself free of the metal and plascrete that had pinned him down, and he had offlined several times in the process.

Finally free, he had initially been afraid to examine the damage too closely for fear the knowledge would put him into shock. But then he realised he would need to at least close off any leaking fluids and split any buckled panels, so he had reluctantly turned his analysis programs back on and looked down.

The news was mixed.

The good news - it was all fixable, not fatal, and the fluid loss would be easily contained. The bad news - it was going to be agony to move even a few steps, let alone the daunting distance ahead of him. Apart from his legs, which were miraculously intact if hideously mangled, he had a tear in his right hip and various smaller wounds and dents all over his body. His vocaliser crackled worryingly every so often, and gave an unpleasant buzz every time he spoke, but that was not going to stop him speaking.

He needed to speak to keep his focus off the damage. He needed some noise to cover the grinding of metal and wires that came with every movement.

Something shifted unexpectedly under his right foot and he fell flat on his face with a startled yelp, not reacting fast enough to even put his hands out in front to slow his fall. Spitting out filings and dust, he shuttered his optics and groaned into the uneven ground.

"Never again. Never, _ever_ again."

* * *

At first, he wondered if he were simply delusional.

After all, he had been dragging his injured self along for more than an orn now - or so his completely functional chronometer cheerfully reported when he checked it - and he had treated enough mechs with severe injuries to know that when wires got crossed it could have all kinds of weird results.

But even crossed wires did not explain the undeniably closed gate in front of him.

It made no sense. None at all. The city gates had not been closed in his entire functional lifetime; not since the war. Sure they were still there, but they were practically rusted in place from disuse. Why would anyone bother?

Anyone coming to Ordan Helix would either come by air or by barge. Coming by land was just impractical with the dead zone on three sides - land that no-one was ever going to bother cleaning up because it was too much effort.

Besides, it was useful as a scrapyard. The waste had to go _somewhere_ until it could be melted down and recycled, and Ordan Helix ended up with a lot of waste given the number of droids the student medics used to practice on. On top of which, Ordan Helix was open to everyone all the time so there was no reason to keep anyone out.

Unless you were paranoid, he thought abruptly. Which military mechs frequently were. They were programmed to treat every situation as a possible threat, and since there were now large numbers of them in Ordan Helix for these checkups...

"No, no, no." he groaned, knocking his head against the gate and disappointed to find that not only it did not even make a satisfyingly loud noise, it left him with an ache and a new dent.

Paranoia from the military made all too much sense. It also left him in a quandry. If he was right then these gates would not be re-opened until the Decepticons left. Which would be in four orns time - far longer than he wanted to sit here in agony.

He had tried going into recharge a few joors ago to give himself some rest, but simply could not with the level of damage to his body. Or, rather, he could but only by shutting down completely which in this state would leave him like that permanently until someone found him. That could take quite a while, even once the gates reopened, and he did not like the idea of being unaware for a long stretch of time.

Scavengers occasionally roamed through here and they were not known for being picky - if he could not fight back, they were just as likely to strip him without worrying about whether he was dead or not.

So. Other options.

He could work his way back to Dabble and Longsider's place, but that was an awfully long way. It would take him at least an orn and a half, and he did not want to do that only to have to turn around and come back again. Besides, if they held to their convictions they would already have abandoned that shelter and he would be far worse off to arrive in the middle of nowhere when no-one knew where he was and with no supplies to greet him on arrival.

Not good.

Everything would be a lot easier if the comm was working. Strange that it did not, now that he was so close to the city, but then that could also be a fault at his end. Primus knew he had enough systems down that it would not surprise him. Still, he needed to catch someone's attention, and the sooner the better.

Which left only one remotely viable option: heading down to the causeway to signal a passing barge.


	4. The medic, 4

Odd, he thought fuzzily, staring up at the sky. An orn earlier, he had thought he had been in real pain. He knew better now.

True, this last part of his trip had been easier because there was a nice, well-maintained path around the outside of the city. But it had also been a good deal further to travel, he was still on foot since the damage was too extensive to attempt transforming into his alt mode, he had still not been able to rest, and his systems were beginning to shut down with exhaustion.

He was so low on energon that the fuel warning light on his HUD had gone out because there was not enough energy to maintain it. Actually, his whole HUD had had to be switched off leaving him only with bare optics.

Somehow that thought was vaguely amusing, although he was not sure why. Not that he had the energy to laugh right now.

Back to the point.

He had made it to the causeway and collapsed against one leg of a traffic control sign which flashed through a regular sequence of instructions about speed and approach vectors to incoming barges. Not that there were any. Or, at least, he had not seen any. Given that he lacked the energy to even sit up, he could not be certain that none had passed by unseen.

No, wait. That was not the point.

The _point_ was, turning off so many of his programs had meant that there was no longer any distraction from the endless pain in his body. In fact, he was beginning to think that being still was worse than moving. He was definitely pleased he did not have to move anymore, was not sure he could if he wanted to, but at least while he had been moving there had been something to concentrate on.

Now there was just the pain.

Oh, and that noise.

Noise?

When had he closed his optic shutters?

Opening them again, he found himself looking up at a very concerned mech.

"...you still with us, lad? Primacron's mercy, what happened to you? Did the scavengers have a go at you? Slagging glitches. Easy there, I can see you're in trouble. Can you get this down?"

An ion stick was proferred.

Not his preference in this situation. He needed a high percentage boron mix of low grade energon to replenish his systems, or at least a half cube of mid-grade, but he would take what he could get. Taking it with a clumsy hand that did not seem to want to obey his commands, he ate it quickly. As expected, it disagreed with his near empty tank making him feel jittery, but at least it gave him a bit of energy.

"Thhhanks."

"No trouble. Come on - I think I'd better carry you. M'name's Slipshod, what's yours?"

Carry him? Was that what the mech had said?

"Uh, Ratchet. But... whoa!"

Slipshod had picked him up easily, clearly built for heavy loads, and now carried him somewhere. Ratchet barely noticed, since every step jarred the damaged connections in his legs. He was vaguely aware that his host was talking to him, and took in something about medics and construction and Ordan Helix, but none of it made much sense and then he lost the fight to stay online.

* * *

Online and _still_ in pain. This was getting boring. Still, he felt more comfortable than he had in awhile, and the pain was slightly muted.

"Hello?" a hopeful voice called.

"Slipshod?" he asked, looking around, remembering his rescuer.

"No, I'm Fuselink. Pleased to meet you."

Ratchet frowned, peering at the unfamiliar mech before him and wondering if another of his systems had crashed because all he had received was the mech's vocalised designation.

"Sorry, I missed your des."

"Fuselink."

"No, your..."

"Oh, my full designation? Slipshod told me to use the colloquial one. It's ..."

Ratchet stared at him, dumbfounded as he received a vocalisation of a full designation. He had never before heard one sounded out into individual characters - it usually came as a sonic burst along with the spoken colloquial designation - and decided that he never wanted to hear one that way again. The mix of punctuation and letters made it almost unintelligible.

Then one of the codes registered with him.

"You're a medic?" Ratchet demanded.

"Yes!" Fuselink agreed happily. "Or, well I will be."

"Will be?" Ratchet echoed helplessly.

What did that mean? Then the last part of the designation came back to him. Rank zero-A-one?

The hope faded.

"You're newly sparked?"

"I'm supposed to be starting at Ordan Helix today."

Ratchet shuttered his optics again.

Just perfect. His host was delivering a brand new student to the infirmary for training. Not only was Fuselink not a medic, he had not been alive long enough to learn tact or manners or much of anything at all. Ratchet hated dealing with sparklings: their lack of knowledge was just frustrating; a bit like dealing with Dabble and Longsider, just without the paranoia.

"Where are we?"

"On the _Tripdi_. That's a barge. Slipshod hired it to bring me down here from Vector Sigma, but now we've gotten here we can't get in."

"Because of the Decepticons." Ratchet sighed. "Great."

"No, because of the virus."

Ratchet snapped his optics open in shock.

"Virus? What virus?"

Fuselink simply stared at him curiously.

"I don't know. But Ordan Helix is closed in quarantine because of a virus. No barges are allowed to stop there until it gets cleared. Slipshod's really upset about it because he hasn't been paid for the commission yet and he's got to get back to work so that's where we're going."

"Vector Sigma?"

"No, Iacon."

Was any of this conversation actually making sense? Ratchet wondered. Perhaps he was fritzing more than he had thought.

"How far away are we?"

"Not far now, you've been offline for more than three groons. Slipshod says he'll take you to the clinic there when we get there, so you can get fixed up. I think he's going to leave me there with you so he can get back to work. That's okay with you, isn't it?"

The clinic at Iacon would be closed, Ratchet realised. Everyone had been recalled for this Decepticon mess, and now if there was a virus it meant that every medic on Cybertron was trapped in the quarantine.

Except him.

"Ratchet? That's okay, right?"

He was still going to have to save himself. Primus help him.

"You can stay. I'm going to give you a crash course in anatomy. Specifically, mine."


	5. The medic, 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** This is the **last** chapter in Ratchet's story. The next chapter will start a different backstory.

"Closed?" Slipshod read blankly, stopping before the closed door and staring into the dark hallway beyond. "How can it be closed? It's a clinic!"

"Just get me inside." Ratchet said dully.

"But the door's locked." Fuselink pointed out.

"You're a medic," Ratchet began, then broke off as his knee gave way.

Slipshod stopped him from falling, pulling his arm more firmly across his shoulders. Fuselink, meanwhile, looked totally lost.

"Try going in." Slipshod suggested. "Maybe it's keyed to medics."

It was, as Ratchet had known it would be, and the door opened readily to admit them. The building was eerily empty, reminding Ratchet of the abandoned buildings in the dead zone, but the lights flickered on as they entered each room and they finally found a surgery bay.

Directing Slipshod to set him down on the bed, he took a moment to gather his courage for what he had planned. He was a surgeon, and he knew he could do all of the procedures required. But doing them on himself? He would have to be conscious, which meant no proper sensory blocks because they would impair his judgement.

No, this was not going to be pleasant.

"Now what?" Slipshod asked, breaking his thought pattern.

Ratchet looked around himself.

"Shift that monitor so I can see it. Fuselink, give me the sensors there."

He attached them to himself, then stared intently at the readout on the screen.

Slipshod looked over his shoulder, but he doubted the other mech could interpret the medical text and scan results that scrolled rapidly as he entered various queries. He was low on energon - not a surprise - but his lower half had also lost most of its lubricant. Not good. Dry connections were painful connections. Still, it would save him time drying the areas he needed to solder and weld.

Most of the circuits for his upper torso were intact, but the readouts for his legs were poor. In some ways, it would be easier to fix if they had been severed completely. On the other hand, if they had been he would never have made it this far.

"Uh, is it a good idea for you to be seeing that? Shouldn't we find you another medic?"

Ratchet ignored the question, still staring intently at the data before him.

"Find me a mirror. Fuselink, I need some tools. Try that cabinet there."

"What do you need the mirror for?" Slipshod asked.

Ratchet barely heard him, watching his new assistant.

"Give me those. Get a... There. Get a tray and put them there on that trolley. Next drawer?"

A good half of the instruments Fuselink was piling on the tray were duplicates or unnecessary for the procedures he had in mind, but he let the redundancy continue until he had all the items he needed.

"Right. Now open that refrigeration unit and pull out two units of boron-infused low-grade. No, not those, that's xenon... yes, those. Like that. Two of those. Next shelf down, there should be some coolant - get some of the white one. Right. And then some lubricant. Any of them will do, I'll worry about the matching later.

"Okay. Now in that refrigerator there, there'll be some liquids labelled Teracolomatenite. I need batch 492. No, wait, 496. Yes. 496. Good. Bring all of that here. Now, did you get any primary programming in setting up replacement fluid lines? No? Figures. See that stand there? Bring it here then find me another one just like it."

With hands still clumsy from fatigue and low energy, Ratchet managed to set up one of the energon units and plug it into himself. Immediately he felt a shudder flush through his frame as the fluid began to cycle through him. Next was the coolant, and he managed to direct Fuselink in attaching this to the correct port. Now for the TCM496.

"Okay, last one. This one needs to be spliced straight into the energon line just below my pump. One drop every eight clicks - no faster. Use that connection there and be very careful not to spill any of this on your hands."

"Got your mirror." Slipshod announced as he stomped back in. "Gonna tell me what you're doing? Fuselink can't repair you, you know."

Ratchet took the mirror and reached up to grab one of the pincer arms that extended from the ceiling. True, they were usually for the use of the surgeon not the patient, but he was both right now.

Settling the mirror into place, he adjusted the angle so he could see his left leg clearly. Then he shivered as the first drop of TCM hit him, a coagulent which would also dull his sensory perception by coating the inside of his tubes. It meant that his physical reactions to pain would be slowed - important if he was going to stop himself flinching.

"The damage isn't too bad." he said finally. "Painful, but not bad."

Slipshod blinked.

"You're going to operate on yourself!" he gasped. "Are you mad?"

"There's no-one else here to do it for me." Ratchet pointed out. "And if there's a quarantine on, there won't be anyone anytime soon either. You can stay and help or get out, but right now I've got work to do and you're distracting me."

He hoped the other mech would stay. He had constructed Fuselink, after all, so he must know a bit about anatomy. But even if Slipshod went, at least he knew Fuselink was unlikely to be squeamish.

"I think you're either the bravest or the most insane mech I've ever met, and I can't decide which." Slipshod said finally. "So. Where do we start?"

* * *

With Slipshod's help the repairs went far more smoothly than he had been anticipating. There were a couple of near accidents with crossed wires and misaligned bolts, but all in all the work got done and he had gone into a proper recharge for the first time in nearly three orns.

Rousing now he found that his new friend had continued to work while he was offline, and his outer plating had been completely repaired. This was clearly Slipshod's specialty, and he spent a moment admiring the work with the mirror. There did not seem to be a single dent left in his bodywork.

Reaching out, he pulled the monitor close and keyed in a couple of queries. His lubricant lines would need flushing out at some point - this mix was a bit greasy for him - but he was fully functional. He had had the full benefit of the two units of low grade and would now need to fill his empty tank but his circulatory system was running well.

Pleased, and feeling far more normal than he had in orns, he disconnected the various wires and tubes and rose to investigate the room.

First things first, he needed a properly stocked toolkit. He was never going anywhere without his tools again: if he had only had them with him in the dead zone he could have done far more to help himself onsite. He was also not going anywhere ever again without a long range communicator, but that he would have to purchase since he doubted there would be one here, and at the very first opportunity he was going to have some redundancies built into his frame so he was never again so badly incapacitated.

A storage cupboard yielded a box similar to the one he had left in his office at the infirmary, and he emptied the contents onto some nearby bench space. This was going to be a very tailored set, he had decided. Having three different sized laser scapels on hand was all very nice, but outside of an operating theatre he only really needed one. Same with the arc welder.

But he was going to double the normal number of fluid line crimps and add in a few other items that had occurred to him when he had been trying to figure out how to rescue himself. Solid, long-life, low-grade energon sticks. Adjustable temporary pain blocks. Hand scanner to report accurately on the kind of detail that a personal scan might be unreliable for. An adjustable spanner and variable screwdriver. Temporary seal patches. Medical adhesive and binding tape. Three sealed tubes of potassium-infused energon paste...

"Ratchet? I didn't think you'd be up yet."

Closing the latch firmly, he subspaced the kit and turned around.

"Thanks for your help, I appreciate it. If you'll give me a bill for what I owe you, I'd be happy to pay."

"I'll have to do that, I think. I was relying on getting the commission on Fuselink to cover my expenses. How're you feeling?"

"Functional, which is more than I have been for orns now." He paused. "Come to think of it, all my outgoings have to be signed off by my supervisor. Can you wait until the quarantine's lifted?"

"Don't have much choice, do I?"

"Not really. You could hold on to Fuselink for now until you get paid."

"And have him do what? No, he might as well start training."

"I really don't mind." Ratchet tried to protest.

The other mech was already leaving, shaking his head.

"Nope, wouldn't hear of it. He'd be no good at dock work anyway. You take care of him, and I'll come by some time for my fee. Take care now."

"You too."

The door closed, and everything was very quiet.

Ratchet folded his arms and glared at his new assistant.

"Well now. Isn't _this_ going to be fun."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The medic.


	6. The recruit, 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fits with SoaL part 5 chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: the stories here in _Echoes_ won't always be this closely linked, but this one definitely fits with Ratchet's story.

Magnus whistled in appreciation as a fresh pitcher of high grade was set on the table.

"Alright! Primus, I love supply days."

Next to him, Tinwhistle was wasting no time filling his cup.

"Here's to the crew of the... huh. What ship did this lot come off again?"

"The _Aledipo_." someone called from the other side of the room.

"Right. Here's to the crew of the Adelipo."

Magnus snorted, taking a refill himself.

" _Aledipo_ , you glitch."

"That's what I said."

"Yeah, right. You're completely fried, you know that, right?"

"So what? No-one'll care. No more shifts for ten more orns now."

Magnus grinned. Ten whole orns. Breaks like this were rare, but someone had mucked up the shipping schedules and they had been overloaded for the past twelve orns, so now they got a gap. A gap he intended to take full advantage of.

"You hear about Ordan Helix?" another mech was whispering at the next table. "My partner was down there a couple of orns ago and he said the docks're all closed down..."

"So what're you doing tomorrow?" Tinwhistle asked, distracting him from the gossip. "I might head up to see Hightower, haven't been for awhile. You wanna come?"

"Nah, I'm gonna go to Iacon."

Tinwhistle stared at him.

"Why'd you wanna go there for?"

Magnus shrugged.

"I've never been there, and this break's big enough to get there and back."

"Sure, but why bother?"

"It was an old fort. The whole city, I mean. And it still has a Guardian. I like that old history stuff."

"Huh. You're not thinking of leaving to join the Decepticons, are you?"

It was a very appealing option; far better than loading and unloading crates for the rest of his life. But he wanted to talk to some of the military mechs first and get some more information before he decided.

Besides, he was far from sure they would want a noncombatant like him in their ranks.

"Nah, just want to visit the city."

"Well, whatever spins your cogs. Lets have another drink. I'm not going back to my berth until I'm too far gone to see straight."

* * *

It was a good thing he had always had a tolerance for high grade, Magnus mused as he snuck out of the dormitory. The others would not care what time he got up or where he was going, but they would definitely be upset if he woke them up.

Everyone had been celebrating. Some more than others, he grinned as he passed an unlikely pair snuggled up together in an alcove. Another time he might have found his way into someone else's berth himself, but today he had a mission and that had kept him sober and restrained.

Transforming once he was clear of the recharge area, he sped away towards the docks. He had talked to the crew of the barge _Tritus_ the previous orn and they were happy enough to have him in return for a bit of labour at the stops on the way down, but they would not wait for him so he must not be late.

He would not be.

A barge was not the quickest way to Iacon City but it was certainly the cheapest, especially for a dock-loader like him. He wanted cheap. Chances were, even if he wanted to join the Decepticons he would have to beg for it, and he was hoarding all of the energon and other commodity items he had accumulated in the hope of sweetening the deal.

Though he was still not quite sure how he would answer questions about why he wanted to join in the first place.

Occasionally he wondered if there had been a glitch when his basic programming had been entered.

All his life he had been dissatisfied with his work, with his station as a worker. He had absorbed every detail he could find about military things - not that there was much available to a worker. Tinwhistle had known him for many years now and had tried to understand his obsession, but in the end Magnus had found it easier to just pretend it had been a passing phase. That suited the older mech much better, and things had become easier after that.

Until he had heard about the Decepticons.

Ever since the last war, the military line had been pretty much superfluous. Yes, they guarded deliveries from the bases off Cybertron, but there was rarely anyone to protect the shipments _from_. Mostly just unexpected asteroid strikes. Yes they investigated new worlds, protecting the scientists and workers from local life forms, but again there was little danger. It must have been dreadfully hard to find things to do that felt useful, he had always thought.

And then Megatron came along.

Quite why they were still building gun-mechs in this age of peace was beyond him. It seemed cruel and unfair. Yet Megatron had risen through the military ranks steadily, and then had suddenly staged a daring coup. Stepping outside the military hierarchy he had called for volunteers to join him in leaving the monotony of civilian life. He would take as many or as few wanted to come, to search for somewhere their skills could be used.

There lay the rub, Magnus knew.

Although he was _interested_ in the military, he was not really programmed for it. All his training had been in civilian tasks, and the closest he had ever come to actual violence was witnessing a brawl between a couple of intoxicated tetrajets who had stopped in at the local bar for a drink. Personally, he had never done more than give someone a shove. Yes, he got irritated at times, but he was not violent. There were a dozen protocols in place to stop him being that way. Protocols the military-types just did not have, given the purpose of their construction.

Reaching the dock, he transformed back and strolled along to the right slip. There she was, still loading. Grinning, he joined the workers and picked up a crate. Carrying it aboard, he snuck up behind his friend Goldbit.

"Need a hand?"

"Hey, Magnus - wasn't sure you'd really show."

"Why not?"

"Well most of our passengers pulled out after the news about Ordan Helix."

"News?"

"You haven't heard? There's something weird going on there. The whole complex's shut down - no-one coming in or out. I heard a rumour there's a quarantine on."

"What's a quarantine?"

"Isolation to stop the spread of a virus."

Magnus shuddered.

"You think there's a virus there?"

Goldbit shrugged.

"I don't know. But even if there is, it's the right place for it, right? I mean, that's where all the medics are. They'll get it sorted. It's just going to cost us because we can't pick up the medical supplies there like we usually do. I've got mechs at Iacon who aren't going to be pleased about that, but there's just nothing I can do."

* * *

Five joors later, Magnus watched as they drifted past the docks at Ordan Helix. The place looked completely deserted, not a single mech could be seen moving on the docks and the high walls surrounding the complex reminded him that this was another former fort.

The medics were a reasonably new profession - springing up after the end of the war after vorns of mechs making do with what they could do for themselves - and Ordan Helix was the only training centre for medics for the whole planet. There were clinics all over Cybertron, and on every satellite and colony, but the most seriously injured were still transferred here.

Where they would go now, he was not sure, and he shivered slightly at the thought. Accidents happened, no matter how careful everyone was. He had never really thought about it, but he had always felt secure in the knowledge that Ordan Helix was there if things went wrong.

The barge moved around a bend in the causeway and from the new angle he could see a thick cloud of black smoke rising from somewhere within the city's grounds. There was no-one nearby to ask, so he simply stared at it and wondered what it was. It looked far too big to be caused by a simple fire or manufacturing chimney, and surely if it was anything serious the mechs inside would have called for help? Or did the quarantine mean that they could not, for fear of spreading the virus?

Disturbed, he turned away and went inside to find a snack.

When he returned to the deck, Ordan Helix was disappearing into the distance and he could no longer see the smoke. Relieved, he paced over to the railing to watch the scenery.

This area must be a dead zone, he decided, seeing a lot of old rubble and no lighting sources. He had visited a dead zone once and had been utterly disappointed by it. He had been sure that it would be filled with remains of the mechs who had fought there, and broken weapons and scraps of data and other exciting things. But it had been simply dead and empty and cold. Just like this. Nothing moving and nothing... wait.

Was that movement?

He stared hard, then jumped as he clearly saw a mech waving at him.

* * *

Goldbit was not keen on letting the strangers - there were two of them - on board. If they were infected with the virus they could infect the whole barge. But the taller mech's injuries seemed obviously physical, and they were clearly in need of help and with Ordan Helix closed there was not going to be any coming from that quarter, so the barge master was eventually convinced to go to their aid. Magnus jumped off as the barge pulled up next to a ledge and helped carry the taller one towards the vessel.

"Wait." Goldbit called, blocking the boarding ramp. "Are either of you infected?"

"Infected?" the shorter mech asked blankly.

"Ordan Helix is under quarantine - have you been there?"

"I don't know about any quarantine. We're trying to get to Ordan Helix because my friend here's broken a support strut and all the medics got recalled so there wasn't anyone around to fix it."

The story was consistent with their physical state and Goldbit reached out to help Magnus get the damaged mech on board, settling him on the deck.

"Sorry, but I've got to be careful. Now what were your designations?"

"I'm Grapple." the smaller one responded, belatedly. "And this is Hoist. He can't talk at the moment - the accident knocked his vocaliser out of alignment too."

Hoist nodded miserably in agreement, and Goldbit sighed.

"Well welcome aboard. We haven't got a medic, but we can take you on to Iacon. There's bound to be one there."

"Everything'll be fine." Magnus added encouragingly.

Of course it would be. Iacon was the capital: everything could be found in Iacon.


	7. The recruit, 2

The sign made no sense.

"Closed?" Magnus read dumbly. "How can it be closed? It's a clinic!"

" _All_ the medics." Grapple pointed out grumpily, adjusting his grip on Hoist's arm to gain better leverage now Magnus had stepped away. "We told you so. They're all at Ordan Helix and they're all stuck there. I suppose we'll just have to wait until they come back. We'll need to find somewhere to stay until then."

Hoist gestured and Grapple nodded in complete understanding.

"Good idea, and he owes us, too. I wonder if he's still got that studio apartment we designed? Lend a servo, Magnus?"

He deftly turned Hoist away, and Magnus moved reluctantly to follow but then saw someone moving inside.

"Hey, there's someone in there. Hey! Hey, you! Give us a hand here, will you?"

The mech inside the clinic froze in place, then disappeared out of sight again. A glimpse of green and white.

Magnus frowned. If he was not a medic after all, he should not be in there.

"Come out here now or I'll call the Enforcers!" he warned.

Grapple moved back to stand beside him, peering inside.

"I don't see anyone."

"He was there."

"Well..."

"He _was_. I'm not making this up!"

Abruptly the door swished open, and a different mech appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Come in, then, but hurry up about it."

"You're a medic?" Magnus asked suspiciously, seeing the first mech peering nervously around a corner at them.

"Well of course I am. Bring him through here. Fuselink - go lock the door again. What happened to him?"

"A construction accident." Grapple said as Magnus set Hoist down on a medical berth. "He hasn't been able to talk since, or walk properly, and one of his frame struts was knocked out of alignment."

The supposed medic was gathering equipment but now gave Grapple a sceptical look.

"There's no outer damage to suggest that."

"No, well, we patched him up a bit first."

The medic openly winced.

"By 'we' you mean someone _other_ than a medic?"

"Well there were no medics available - they'd all gone to Ordan Helix. Which is where we were going but it's..."

"Closed." the medic interrupted. "I don't suppose anyone's ever told you not to muck about with serious injuries? Primus. Alright, lets see what we're dealing with."

He began a scan, then staggered a little and had to grip the edge of the berth to stabilise himself.

"I'm fine." he waved them off. "Just leave me alone and go do something else. Fuselink! Get in here and find me some type 9 sensory blockers."

The other mech scuttled back in and began searching through the drawers and Magnus frowned.

"Are you two _really_ medics?" he asked.

The mech by the berth glared at him.

"Yes we fragging well _are_. At least, _I_ am, and he _will_ be if he ever gets back to Helix to start his studies."

"You should be resting still." Fuselink stated worriedly, handing over some boxes of circuits. "Slipshod said you needed at least a full orn of charge."

"Yes well Slipshod isn't here and these patients _are_." the medic grumbled, then nearly fell as he stepped over to a bench.

Fuselink caught him but was immediately brushed off.

"I'm fine, leave me alone."

"What's wrong with him?" Grapple asked nervously.

"Ratchet was injured and had to repair himself, since there are no other medics available." Fuselink answered readily. "The damage was very serious..."

"Yes, yes, that's enough of that." Ratchet interrupted irritably. "Find me a stool to sit on and a type 1 welder and some patch plating. As for you two, I don't have space in here for mechs who keep bothering me when I'm trying to work. Go away."

* * *

Wandering around the city, two things immediately struck Magnus.

Firstly, there were no military types to be seen anywhere, which was odd given that Iacon had been one of their strongholds. Perhaps they had left Cybertron already?

Secondly, everyone was confused and concerned about what was going on elsewhere on the planet.

There were rumours about a virus at Ordan Helix, but that was not all. There was also something going on at Typho, the main sparkling centre, and at Norisi the femme city. Rumour also had it that there was some kind of protest at Vector Sigma. But no-one seemed sure which of the stories were factual, and there were no official communications about any of it.

Almost everyone he spoke to seemed to be trying to ignore it all as none of their business, but everyone was clearly worried.

Wondering whether Grapple might help him find some temporary lodgings in exchange for helping them find a medic for Hoist, he came around a corner just in time to walk straight into a bulky red mech a bit shorter than himself. The mech's burden was scattered everywhere and he yelped in dismay.

Feeling guilty, and hoping he had not been meandering along an unmarked speedway, Magnus bent to help.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't..." he began automatically, then broke off as he saw what the mech was gathering back into the box.

Military issue laser rifles?

"Hey, are you with the Decepticons?"

"None of your slagging business." the mech snapped. "Out of my way, I'm in a hurry."

"No, wait - I want to talk to you. Here, I'll help you carry these. It's my fault you dropped them anyway."

Picking up a few of the dangerous items, he peered at them.

"Wow." he murmured to himself. "I've always wanted one of these."

The red mech froze.

"You're not military, are you? You don't look military."

"I'm not. I'm a dock worker. But..."

"Then why would you want a rifle?"

"I dunno. I just always wanted to try shooting one. Where are you taking these?"

"None of your business." the reply came absently. "Where do you work?"

"Odera."

"Odera? You're a long way from base then. What're you doing here?"

"How come I have to answer your questions but you won't answer mine?" Magnus frowned.

The red mech stared at him for a moment, then laughed.

"Fair enough. Coll-des's Ironhide. What about you?"

Ironhide. An interesting colloquial designation, but even more interestingly his full designation included the information that he was a delivery mech for military armament supplies. Well that explained that, then.

"Magnus."

"Nice designation. You going anywhere right now?"

"Not really. I'm looking for some accommodation."

"I might be able to help with that. Come on, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. I think he'll like you."

When he realised they were heading for the docks he was disappointed. He had hoped they were going to the military base. Still, he had found Ironhide to be good company, and if he could stay on the mech's good side he was sure he could get an introduction to a military mech eventually.

Carrying a crate easily, he followed Ironhide into a large warehouse past two sets of security doors and into a small windowless room. The three mechs already there had been talking, but now fell silent as they saw him. Out of the three, the one his optics were drawn to immediately was the tall mech with the striking red, blue and white colouration. There was just something about him that drew the optic.

"Who's this?" one of the others demanded, Magnus did not see which one.

"A new friend. He's come up from Odera. Bumped into him on the way here - turns out he wants to try to learn to be military."

Magnus felt the weight of three pairs of optics on him and shifted uncomfortably.

"I've just always wanted to. Maybe they mucked up my programming or something when I was sparked."

"He came here to join the Decepticons." Ironhide continued, unperturbed, setting his crate down on a table. "Good thing for us I found him first."

"Indeed." the tall mech intoned. "Tell me, friend, what do you know of the Decepticons?"

Thinking privately that it was polite for people to introduce themselves when they met, he considered the question.

"I know they were a group started by the soldier Megatron when he gave up his rank. He said he wanted to help the military types by taking them off-planet. I thought I'd like to go with them - it's more interesting than dock work."

The tall mech chuckled softly.

"Agreed, but then most things seem that way until you try them out. You say you want to fire a laser. Do you mean you think could fire it at another mech?"

Magnus was taken aback.

"I'm not some mad glitch who's lost his programming!" he protested.

"No-one suggested you were."

The sound of a femme's voice, hard as it was, caught him by surprise and he finally looked away from the tall mech. To the left was an average height military mech. To the right, a pink-framed femme. All looked equally serious, but the femme was now looking at the tall one.

"I suppose we'll have to start recruiting soon anyway."

"I don't know." the military one frowned. "Taking some bright kid off the street? How do we know he can be trusted?"

"He doesn't work for Megatron." the tall one pointed out. "That alone makes him trustworthy. We will give you your chance to hold a laser, friend. How shall we call you?"

"I'm known as Magnus."

"Magnus." the mech echoed, also repeating the full designation thoughtfully but tacking an extra unfamiliar symbol on the end. "Hmm. Welcome. This is Kup, and Elita-1. And I am..."

He broke off briefly, looking abruptly embarrassed, and the other three laughed.

"You're gonna have t'get used to saying it." Ironhide grinned. "Kid, this here's Optimus. Optimus _Prime_."


	8. The recruit, 3

A Prime.

There had not been a Prime for vorns, not since Sentinel Prime's death and the disappearance of the Matrix. And yet here he was, and somehow it fit with what Magnus felt when he looked at him.

It was a new assignation, he gathered even as they told him the story, which explained his discomfort with his own designation. Then Ironhide explained that Optimus was starting his own faction to protect Cybertron.

"Protect against what?"

"The Decepticons." Elita said quietly.

"But they're leaving."

Optimus shook his head.

"Megatron has never said they will be leaving Cybertron, he has only allowed everyone to believe what they chose. All he said was that he was going to lead them to a new future. From the information Kup has given us, the rest of us are an expendable hinderance to that future."

"That's right, kid; I've defected." Kup grimaced. Right now I'm on a hit list because I didn't stick with them - didn't like what I was hearing, didn't like it one bit. Just a shame I didn't get here before the move on Ordan Helix."

"Then you know what's going on there?" Magnus asked. "I came past there. The whole place is quarantined, and there's lots of smoke."

Elita-1 shuddered, hugging herself, and Optimus put an arm around her.

"There is no virus, and no quarantine. The Decepticons have gone there to recruit medics, and anyone who won't join willingly will be scrapped."

"Scrapped? You mean...?"

"Deactivated." Kup nodded grimly. "That's what made me run in the end. Bad enough what I'd been hearing already, but the plans for Ordan Helix froze my circuits."

"But... but why? That's where most of the medics are..."

"All of them." Ironhide spat. "They did some clever talking and got every medic back there. Every slagging one of them on Cybertron, and most of'em from the rest of the sector too. Which means when they attack we won't have anyone around to do any repairs."

"No, that's not right." Magnus began.

"Exactly." Kup spoke over him. "They're mad, the lot of them. Megatron promises them endless supplies of energon and personal slaves and anything else they could want, and they stop thinking about what they're going to be doing to get it."

"No, I mean, he didn't get all of them."

They all fell silent and stared at him.

"What?" Ironhide asked blankly.

"The medics. Two of them escaped. They're here in Iacon."

* * *

The lights were off and the doors locked when they all arrived at the clinic. Given that that was how it had been when he arrived here with Hoist and Grapple Magnus was not initially concerned. But after knocking on the door and calling out for almost a breem with no response, it began to look hopeless.

"I don't understand. Where would they have gone? Ratchet was unsteady on his pedes!"

"Someone must have seen you all come in here." Ironhide grimaced. "Probably waited for you to leave, then..."

Magnus turned away sharply, not wanting to hear the rest.

Things like this did not happen in real life - that was just stories of the war. In reality, mechs did not get murdered. Especially not in Iacon, home to the High Council, the military High Command and the original base of the Enforcers.

"Maybe they've moved on." Elita-1 suggested kindly.

"He just said the medic couldn't walk." Kup reminded her.

"Yes, but maybe..." Magnus floundered, embarrassed and unsure what to do.

A voice from above saved him.

"Magnus? Is that you?"

"Fuselink! Thank Primus! Where's Ratchet, is he okay?"

Fuselink looked uneasily at the others from the window where he was leaning out.

"He's in recharge. He told me to turn off all the lights and lock the doors and not let anyone in except for you if you came back. You were gone for a long time."

"Sorry. Look, these guys can be trusted - just open the door."

Fuselink shook his head.

"He said no-one but you."

"But if he trusts Magnus, wouldn't he trust Magnus to know who was friendly?" Elita-1 reasoned.

Fuselink looked unconvinced.

"I don't know. He didn't say that."

"But..."

"Magnus." Optimus interrupted him gently. "We'll wait out here. Go and talk to Ratchet - we need to get moving soon. Kup. Ironhide. Elita. Come with me."

He led them away, out of sight, and Magnus sighed in relief as Fuselink opened the door.

"Thank you."

Hurrying down the corridor, a little disconcerted by the dark, he found his way back to the room where he had left Ratchet. The medic was lying on the repair berth where he had been treating Hoist, but there was no sign of the injured construction mech. Scraps of wires and smears of fluid marked various tools on the trolley nearby were the only signs anyone else had been here at all.

"Ratchet? Wake up, please? I know you probably need more rest, but you've got to wake up now - I need to talk to you."

Ratchet's optics flickered, glowing faintly blue as he roused then more strongly so as he focused.

"So. You're back."

"Where're Hoist and Grapple?"

"Please tell me you didn't wake me just to find that out." Ratchet grumbled. "It's been a very, _very_ long few orns and I might just have to hit you with something."

"No. I mean, there's things going on. We've got to get out of here. This place isn't safe."

Ratchet looked at him dubiously.

"It's a clinic, of course it's safe."

"No, there's... oh, look it'll be better if you hear it from them. I'll probably just muck it up. Can you tell Fuselink to let the others in?"

"What others? Not more patients, I hope."

"No, they're friends. They know about what's going on at Ordan Helix."

Ratchet stared at him for a moment, then waved a hand.

"Fuselink, go and get his friends, then lock the door again and wait in the corridor while we talk. Tell me if anyone else arrives."

The medic sat up carefully, his joints clearly stiff, and eased himself off the berth. Magnus reached out to lend a hand, but quickly backed off at a growl and glare, and settled for watching the doorway until the others entered.

"May I introduce Ratchet. Ratchet, this is Kup, Elita-1, Ironhide, and Optimus _Prime_."

Ratchet started at the final name, whatever retort he had been preparing dying before it could be spoken.

"It's a real pleasure to find you here, medic." Optimus nodded. "I had believed the Decepticons had been completely successful in their ploy."

Ratchet said nothing in response and there was a short uncomfortable silence before the Prime spoke again.

"Magnus has not explained?"

"I thought you should, sir."

"I see." Optimus paused. "Perhaps you should prepare yourself for a shock. What I have to say is unpleasant."

"Then I don't want to hear it." Ratchet interrupted sharply. "You say you're a Prime? I haven't heard the High Council proclaiming the Matrix has been found. But whatever, go back to your temple and give a sermon. Whatever's going on, I don't want any part of it. I'm just waiting for the quarantine to be lifted on Ordan Helix then I'm going home. End of story."

"You can't go back." Kup told him. "The Decepticons..."

"Are there, I know, that's why I ended up out _here_." Ratchet railed. "You want to talk about unpleasant? Unpleasant is having a building fall on you in a dead zone. Unpleasant is having to drag yourself onwards for joors only to find some paranoid moron has closed the gate so you can't get home. Unpleasant is having to rebuild your own circuitry because there's no other medics around to do it. You've got something worse than that? Sure, go ahead. Tell me. Otherwise leave me alone."

Magnus tried to catch a glimpse of the Prime's expression without being caught looking, embarrassed by the medic's outburst. Ratchet seemed to have good cause to be upset, but this was a _Prime_.

Optimus did not appear annoyed, though. Instead he stepped forward and put a hand on Ratchet's shoulder.

"It's true, I cannot know what your experience has been like. But I fear that in the orns to come, others will come to understand all too well. My friend, we do need your help. Cybertron is in great peril, and most of the population does not understand how dangerous things are right now. Megatron and his Decepticons represent the greatest threat to our race's stability since the early wars."

Ratchet stirred, frowning, but said nothing and Optimus continued.

"You may believe that your presence here now is a coincidence, or an accident, but I choose to see it as destiny. Megatron intends to start a war of acquisition. He intends to destroy the society we all know and replace the High Council with himself as Supreme Overlord."

"How can you know that?" Ratchet grumbled. "Has he told you?"

A good question, and one that Magnus had not thought to ask. Not that he would have dared be so rude even if it had occurred to him.

"I know." Optimus said simply.

Ratchet folded his arms across his chest, considering for a long moment, then grunted.

"So what's this got to do with the quarantine at Ordan Helix?"

"Megatron's eliminating resistance." Kup began to explain. "It's hard to believe, I know, but the plan was..."

"To kill us all." Ratchet interrupted flatly, turning away and fiddling with some of the instruments.

"How do you know?" Kup asked, surprised.

"Not hard to guess, given how serious you all are. Besides, some friends tried to warn me and I didn't listen, but I've heard the rumours and..." He broke off abruptly, waving a hand towards Magnus. "Anyway, the mechs he brought in both had soot in their intakes. A basic analysis told me what was being burned. I thought it must be victims of the virus, but you're saying it's murder instead. Well, dead is dead, but what I don't know is _why_. Why are they doing this? What purpose does it serve?"

"Megatron intends to take control of Cybertron, and enslave everyone who will not convert to his side." Optimus responded. "Which does not truly explain why, but it's a beginning. His plan as I know it so far is devastatingly simple."

"No medics, no repairs." Ratchet muttered, staring at the floor, his hands forming fists. "Drabble and Longsider were right after all."

"Who?" Ironhide asked.

Ratchet gave no response and Magnus shrugged when the others looked to him. He did not really know Ratchet, after all. In fact, he was wondering whether the mech was sane. If he had found out Tinwhistle and his other friends at Odera had been hurt he would be a complete wreck.

Ratchet finally looked up, gazing directly at Optimus and ignoring everyone else.

"You know what's going on. What're you planning to do about it?"

"Fight back."

"How? With what? Or do you have a small army hidden away somewhere they won't know about?"

"In a way. I've begun forming a resistance group. The Autobots. Your help would be..."

Ratchet waved a hand irritably.

"That's a given, but it won't do you much good against military mechs. Do you have weapons?"

"Some. We're stockpiling, and we've got some helpers making us extras."

"What about upgrades? Customised armour? In-built weaponry?"

The Prime shook his head.

"We haven't gotten that far."

"Then it's time you did. I can help with that, I've got the specs right to hand as it happens, but I want something in exchange."

"If I can give it, you can have it."

"I want to be able to defend myself. Guards aren't enough. I'll equip your soldiers, but I'll be armed too. And so will any femmes with you." he added, gesturing to Elita-1. "If they're willing to do what they've done so far, they'll do anything. None of us are safe anymore. Not until it's over."

"Agreed." Optimus nodded. "Can you also remove the pacification protocols in civilian programming?"

Ratchet hesitated.

"Programming isn't my specialty..." he began, then shook his head. "I'll figure it out or find someone who can. No point giving you all guns if you can't fire them, is there?"

"Me first." Magnus stepped forward. "I'll volunteer to be the test case."

Ratchet grunted.

"Knew from the click I saw you you were crazy. Right, lets stop wasting time and get going?"

"Don't you need to collect your tools?" Kup asked.

"I'm good to go. Trust me: I've got everything I need."

* * *

"Magnus?" a soft voice called. "Are you alright?"

He turned to see Elita-1 approaching where he sat on the edge of the roof. The view of Iacon was spectacular from here, but he had not really been enjoying it.

"Ratchet said the surgery and reprogramming went fine." she ventured, settling beside him.

He sighed, raising his arm and triggering the sequence to make a rifle emerge from his forearm.

"It went fine." he agreed dully.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I just..." he began, paused, then began again. "I thought I'd feel different. A few groons ago I was just a dockworker and now I'm a soldier, but I still feel the same. I don't even _look_ any different, unless I show these. No-one would even know."

"You regret doing this." she concluded pensively.

"No. No, Megatron needs to be stopped. I understand that, and I want to be part of it. I just thought... it'd be different being military, and it isn't."

"You're still you." she pointed out. "It's just that now you can defend yourself."

That was true. Just because this trip had not ended at all like he had dreamed, did not mean he could get away with sitting around sulking. Tinwhistle would never have put up with it, so why should Prime?

Prime needed him. _Prime_ needed _him_. And being part of this Autobot group, he could protect Tinwhistle and the others in Odera when they couldn't help themselves.

It was an honourable duty, and he would do whatever it took to see that Megatron's cause failed.

Nodding to himself more than to her comment, he rose.

"Well, I guess I should stop brooding then, right? Doing things will be better than sitting around here. Come on, lets go find out what's next."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The recruit.


	9. The artist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fits with SoaL part 5, chapter 4.

Kaon. Sunstreaker's least favourite city. Everything was loud and garish and violence could erupt at any time; the Enforcers had never really had control over the city inhabitants, even before the latest unrest.

He had come this time for the same reason that had brought him the last three times: to replenish his supply of the hard to come by ferrous paint.

Sideswipe grumbled that his suppliers could get it without requiring a trip to the city, but they never did proper quality checks, allowing contaminants into the mix. By coming himself he could be sure it was pure.

Even so, this might be his last trip. The city had always been dangerous, but this time even he felt on edge. There were signs of recent riots, and many of the retailers had closed their shops. His supplier had been nervous the whole time, demanding an exorbitant price for a tiny amount and then slamming the door shut on him once the transaction was complete.

Heading back out onto the main thoroughfare, he was mildly disturbed to find the crowds dispersing. Probably off to watch a fresh clash between Enforcers and the Decepticons, he decided. Nothing to do with him. And then a drop of fluid landed on his shoulder.

He winced, looking up. There had been no alert for an acid rain storm in this area today; nevertheless, there was one brewing and he needed to find shelter. Looking about, he saw that the architecture offered little in the way of cover, he needed to get inside. But all the doors were shut tight, and he could see no sign of the public shelters that had been erected in almost every city since this menace began.

His dismay turned to alarm as the scattered drops became more persistent and a trickle made it through to the wires in his elbow. As concerned as he always was with his appearance, this took priority: with Ordan Helix gone, medics were few and far between and self-taught techs charged huge sums for shoddy work. Assuming he found some shelter before the storm simply melted him away.

Movement to his right made him duck down a small alley. A tetrajet had just landed and was entering a small residence. Bolting after him, he barged his way in before the door could close, knocking the tetrajet sprawling.

"Hey!" the flier roared, shoving him down. "You can't come in here."

"Well I sure as slag can't stay out _there_." Sunstreaker growled back. "This is the last time I come to Kaon - where are your shelters?"

"There are no shelters in Kaon." another mech told him, offering a hand to help him up. "The Autobots keep destroying them."

"I didn't think there were any Autobots in Kaon. Thought they were all in Iacon."

"The Autobots are everywhere." his host told him, gesturing to a chair. "And bringing anarchy in their wake."

"Don't you mean the Decepticons?" Sunstreaker grunted, examining the damage to his elbow.

The tetrajet began to protest but the silver mech motioned him to silence.

"The Decepticons are merely fighting against injustice. Should they allow the Council to deny them access to Vector Sigma? To restrict their energon supply? To deny them representation?"

"Doesn't mean they had to poison the atmosphere and cause the acid rain."

"They didn't. That's pure propaganda."

Relieved to find that the nanites were quickly fixing the damage to his elbow and that he would not need to find assistance, Sunstreaker finally took a good look at his host. A silver military mech, gunformer if he judged the form correctly. Important enough that this tetrajet - a model ever-derisive of non-fliers - would hold his temper and words at a simple gesture.

Sudden cold certainty washed over him.

"You're Megatron."

"And you're uniquely unafraid." the Decepticon leader mused. "Why are you visiting Kaon, friend?"

"I'm an artist. I was buying paint."

He unsubspaced one pot which the tetrajet snatched off him and opened clumsily, spilling the precious red substance over himself and the floor.

"Careful with that, it'll stain if you don't wash it off quickly."

"An artist." Megatron mused as the tetrajet disappeared into a back room, swearing. "Yet you have the frame of a fighter. A gladiator, in fact."

"There's no point trying to recruit me, I'm not a soldier."

"Many have said the same, you would be surprised at how well you would fit in our ranks."

"Maybe. I'd have to check with my... partner, first."

He avoided saying 'brother'. This mech was dangerous, and already knew too much about him: discovering that he was a twin would only mean Megatron could track him anywhere on the planet.

"Another artist?"

"Yes." Sunstreaker lied.

"I see."

There was an awkward silence, then Megatron gestured to the window.

"It seems the rain has passed for now. I'm sure you'll want to hurry back to your... partner."

Slightly disbelieving that it was going to end as simply as that, Sunstreaker rose and began to walk towards the door. He had lost a whole pot of the precious paint, but he had no intention of trying to reclaim or replace it. It was not worth the cost.

"Do make sure you make a choice before the choice is made for you." Megatron called as he opened the door. "Time is quickly running out for those who haven't chosen a side."

He left without turning around. He was never returning to Kaon. Never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The artist.


	10. The scientist, 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fits with SoaL part 10, chapter 2.

Skyfire watched somewhat nervously as his lover looked over the proposal in detail.

Whitestar was brilliant at everything he cared to turn his hand to: a gifted flier, a celebrated researcher, a renowned scientist. Skyfire was fairly well regarded, himself, and he had read through the proposal three times without finding any obvious flaws before handing it over to his more cautious partner. If there was anything amiss, Whitestar would find it, but if there wasn't then the possibilities were incredible.

A breem later the datapad was tossed onto the low living room table with a dismissive gesture and Whitestar paced over to the sideboard to get himself some fresh energon.

"Well?" Skyfire asked impatiently, twisting around to watch him.

The answer was brusque.

"I don't like it."

"The premise seemed well thought out."

"It is." Whitestar frowned, pacing back around to the couch. "I still don't like it. Just who is this mech Asher? _I've_ never heard of him. If he's this brilliant, where are the rest of his achievements? Why isn't he living here at Altihex in the science quarter? It smells like a scam to me."

Skyfire picked up the datapad and scrolled through it slowly.

"The science seems sound..." he began.

"Which just makes it a _clever_ scam, that's all. Sky, it makes too much sense. If someone had really come up with a way to add a supplementary processor to active mechs that works _half_ as well as he's claiming it will, we should have heard about it. The Science Council should be running trials, you wouldn't be hearing about this from some crackpot drunk who stopped you in the street when you got lost in the manufacturing quarter!"

Skyfire looked away, still embarrassed about that mistake. Whitestar had been frantic when he had finally arrived home in the middle of the night and not placated in the least by his story of a kind, elderly mech who had guided him back to their neighbourhood.

"You're right. I'm sorry. It was stupid. This can't be real, can it?"

Whitestar set down his cube and moved to straddle Skyfire's thighs, kissing him lightly. Then he tweaked his nose playfully.

"Not stupid, just naive. You want to believe the best of everyone. But I kinda like that in you."

There was more than a little truth in the cliché that the larger a mech got, the stupider he was: it had to do with processor design. But Skyfire was a product of an effort to remedy that, and the experiment had worked. He was as quick and capable as most standard-sized mechs. Which may not make him as quick as Whitestar, but then few were.

Whitestar was a tetrajet from Vos, one of dozens produced every vorn as part of the annual military quota. He was supposed to be content with his lot as a soldier, to be a bodyguard or convoy escort or asteroid patroller: that was what his specifications demanded.

But the spark Vector Sigma had granted him was brimming with curiosity. And on a whim one of the training supervisors had indulged him, permitting him to study science alongside weapons use so long as he maintained his progress in the normal military curriculum.

He did that and more. Upon his release from the training camp he had had several offers to move straight into senior positions, some of them quite prestigious. He turned them all down to apply to the Altihex Science Academy.

It could not have been an easy choice. The enrolment board at the academy were unconvinced that any tetrajet could cope with their curriculum and would only accept him if he would enter at the basic level alongside the newly activated mecha two and a half centuries his junior. He did not care, voracious for knowledge and eager to prove himself, building on what he already knew and gathering in anything more he could get his hands on.

Within a century he had completed the entire three-century curriculum and was ready for the fieldwork component. But fieldwork had to be done with a partner, and he had annoyed and embarrassed and surpassed too many of his peers: no-one would commit to working with him for a long period. So he found himself stuck at the Academy, tinkering with his experiments, bored with analysis, half-sparkedly teaching when required and grimly considering whether he should in fact simply transfer back to the military.

Skyfire had graduated centuries earlier and had done his fieldwork component then slipped into a comfortable position at the newly built satellite base called Ovacalix. The work was steady, if routine, and he had planned to hold the post for a millennium or two before looking elsewhere.

All of that changed when he made a brief trip back to the Academy for some supplies and met Whitestar.

Calling it love at first sight was not entirely accurate. More like lust, and not initially for the tetrajet himself, but for his work: an intriguing hypothesis written up in a prestigious journal. His physical relationship with the author had come quite some time later, something Whitestar still liked to tease him about since _he_ had been quite vocal about his attraction the first time they met.

In any case, the fact remained that they were the oddball couple, the freaks, the ones who did not quite fit but who somehow fit together nicely. Very nicely, in fact. And perhaps it was that reasoning that had gotten them the grant to go exploring so far outside the usual sphere.

For centuries Skyfire had been toying with a theory about organic life - carbon-based, that was - and it turned out that Whitestar had been approaching a similar conclusion from a different angle, studying stellar conditions that might be required to sustain such life. Between them they had identified a dozen solar systems that appeared to meet these conditions and had put in a proposal, fully expecting it to be turned down for being too dangerous, too far to travel for a theory, and too unlikely a hypothesis.

Instead, the board had approved, and requested a detailed itinerary.

Whitestar claimed that the Council just wanted them out of the way, but he was excited. Heading out to places no Cybertronian had ever seen... even if they found nothing of interest, they would have been there first.

A knowing chuckle brought him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see Whitestar grinning at him.

"You're thinking about the trip again. I can tell. You get all heated up."

"And you don't?" he countered.

Whitestar's grin turned wicked, wings twitching in anticipation.

"Why don't you find out?"


	11. The scientist, 2

Whitestar stretched languidly, listening to the silence of the apartment for a moment before hauling himself up with a sigh. There was too much to do to be lazing around right now.

Their diversion into lovemaking had made Skyfire late for an appointment with the fitter for his new thruster engines. They had elected not to use a shuttle for their explorations: they were both space-travel capable and a nonsentient shuttle would need maintenance and security and fuel, and it all seemed like unnecessary work. So they were both having some structural adjustments made to their propulsion and fuel efficiency systems, and they would both be fitted with the highest quality energy-collecting panels so that they would not need to carry large quantities of energon.

Optics landing on the datapad Skyfire had presented earlier, Whitestar frowned. He knew in his spark that it had to be a scam, there had to be a catch, but what could it be? Adding an extra processor would mean quicker handling of complex calculations, less reliance on external computers. It was exactly what they needed for their trip.

"And that's another reason to be suspicious." he growled at himself, snatching it up and putting it in the recycling box near the door to be disposed of later.

Everyone knew of their plans, it was no secret. It had even been announced on the interplanetary newslink. The fact that this mech, whoever he was, knew they would be interested in such a development meant nothing: it just made them a good target.

"Put the slagging thing in place then wave goodbye and let us find out it doesn't work properly when we're out of reach of help." he predicted.

The problem was, he could see no valid reason why it should _not_ work. And that irritated him.

Everyone knew that once a new-spark had assimilated to a chamber, it could never be removed from that chamber without dying. Similarly, once the spark and chamber were linked to a core processor, they could not be de-coupled without serious consequences: usually death, but occasionally just mindless insanity.

Changes could be made to a frame only within the bounds of the initial programming; thus a truck could be converted to a different type of ground-bound vehicle without trouble, but could not become a jet and expect to fly. Additional memory storage space could be added, though that often had strange and as yet still unpredictable side effects. But the processor itself remained inviolate.

That was why the very large mechs tended to be stupid. A new spark could only cope with so much data during assimilation. It was best to aim for as powerful a processor as possible and for a very simple frame with no transformation ability and minimal mobility. Once the connection was solidified, adjustments could be gradually made as required, and generally the youngling would take on his final adult frame after about a century.

Where a very large mech was intended, such as for a Guardian, the baseline programming had to be kept very simple to allow most of the processing power to go towards control of the giant frame. There was little point in going too small either, because then the processor itself had to be miniturised and usually resulted in the need to reduce capability to make it fit. Which was why there was an accepted standard size which allowed for an optimal balance. Moving away from that standard range was a complete waste, in Whitestar's view. Some of those sparks trapped in oversized bodies could have been great scientists or artists or explorers.

His gaze flicked back to the box. A breakthrough such as Asher was claiming might allow such injustices to be righted. More processing capacity would take pressure off the core processor. It would be the biggest scientific achievement since Alpha Trion had discovered how to turn off the autodeactivation sequence that had restricted their race's maximum lifespan to 800 vorns. If he could be part of that discovery...

"No." he told himself, stamping one pede in emphasis. "No. It's a stupid idea. It's not even possible, this is just a scam and I'm not falling for it."

* * *

Skyfire slipped into their apartment feeling guilty for the second orn in a row. He hoped that Whitestar might be out as his schedule had dictated but the lights were blazing and his mate was pacing anxiously.

"Are you alright? You should've called me! I've been worried sick."

"I'm fine." he protested, hobbling over to the nearest chair and collapsing into it gratefully.

Whitestar glared down at him, wings flared, hands on hips.

"That's it. From now on you don't go out alone."

"Star, look..."

"No. These slagging protesters making all this fuss are causing more trouble than the military ever did. The Enforcers should lock them all up, or exile them. Slagging well _execute them_ if need be. Half their protests turn into riots, they won't listen to reason..."

Skyfire slumped back in the chair, listening to Whitestar rant away his anxiety, just pleased to be home.

Politics. He had never taken any interest in the past, but recently it had been impossible to ignore.

The problems had started when the High Council had unilaterally decreed that there would be a limit placed on the number of military models activated each year. The decision was a coldly logical one: there was simply not enough work to occupy all those soldiers. It was also because of the growing energon shortages, and rumours had started up that the next step would be reducing rations to the military as their models required more fuel by mass than any other group.

While most of the military's senior staff blustered unconvincingly that none of this was true, a lower ranked soldier had made a stand and started gathering support. From what Skyfire had heard, this Megatron spoke a lot of sense and he seemed to be trying to avoid the inevitable civil disruption that was coming.

For his part Whitestar had been dismissive of the move, scathing of any soldier who would break rank and disobey orders.

"Sure, he makes sense now," he had growled when they had first heard of it, "but if he's broken the rules once, he'll do it again. This won't end well, and anyone smart'd stay right out of it."

That had been six vorns ago, and while it had not yet come to a conclusion it had certainly caused trouble. In cities with large military populations there was often violence as supporters of Megatron, calling themselves Decepticons, clashed with those loyal to the old hierarchy. All too often, civilians were caught between the two groups. In some civilian cities, too, there had been demonstrations and rallies promoting Megatron's cause as freedom from oppression, and these too could turn violent.

Most recently a new faction had entered the fray. They had no name yet, or none that Skyfire had heard, but they distributed what they called 'evidence' of Megatron's true intentions: complete domination and destruction of the status quo, enslavement of most civilians and murder of the rest. They claimed Megatron's followers were causing the energon shortages deliberately, that they were sabotaging the production factories and stirring up factionalism.

Much of what they said sounded like surreal nonsense, but it did draw attention.

Today he had been running late on his way to his appointment, so instead of using the secure transit shuttle to get to his destination and be late he had elected to fly there himself. That was not the problem. The problem was that the workshop of this particular artisan was not accessible from above so he had had to walk down several levels of ramps and along the dark underground streets to get there.

Had he been on the transit shuttle he could have had an Enforcer escort from the station to his destination. Instead he was alone as he rounded the corner and was set upon by a hyped-up crowd who thought him a Decepticon just because of his wings.

Idiots. It was obvious he was civilian from his frame design. But a frenzied mob could not be reasoned with. He fled as fast as he could, but not before taking blows to his helm, legs and wings.

"...could get my hands on them, that's for sure." Whitestar continued to fume, his contrastingly gentle touch now exploring the new repairs along the edge of one wing.

"I'm okay, Star. I got away."

"This time." Whitestar muttered darkly, then straightened and folded his arms. "You're not going outside the Academy without me anymore. Not to anywhere. Promise me."

"Star..."

"Promise me!"

"What would you have done if you'd been there? You're half my size!"

"Promise!"

"Okay." Skyfire relented. "If it'll make you happy, okay."

Whitestar shook his head, mollified but still upset.

"What'll make me happy is being away from all this where you're safe."

"How did you know, anyway?" Skyfire asked curiously. "I'm actually back early, and you were supposed to be going out."

"Coldcast called after you left to say things were getting unpleasant and he was worried because you hadn't turned up. I knew why you were late, but I hoped you have the sense to stay clear. Then I realised of course you wouldn't have."

"There was no sign that anything was wrong."

Whitestar shook his head in obvious dismay.

"There are always signs, Sky. You just aren't ever looking."


	12. The scientist, 3

The next few orns passed in the building flurry of preparations to leave. Skyfire recovered, their replacement parts were manufactured and installed, and they were frequently summoned to discussions with colleagues asking them to collect data or specimens or run additional experiments while they were away.

The requests they uniformly turned down. They could not carry any additional equipment, nor afford to get weighed down by samples of every new rock and gas and liquid they came across. It was going to be difficult enough to complete everything they had already planned.

Outside the Academy the city had calmed again. The Enforcers had quadrupled their presence to restore order, and it had worked. In Altihex, at least. The extra Enforcers had had to come from somewhere, and the cities they had abandoned now suffered through their absence. Normally they would call upon the military for help, but in this situation that was not a viable option.

Whitestar did not know how to fix the problem, and did not care. In four more orns he and Skyfire would leave and all Cybertron's problems would be left behind, too. But before they left he had one last thing he needed to resolve.

The idea of a secondary processor had gnawed at him. He had gone over the details time and again, checking all of the referenced sources, spending joors in the archives seeking any evidence of flaw in the plan. He found nothing.

His instincts still told him it was a trap. An elaborate trap, maybe, but a trap nonetheless. But it would be so useful. If it worked it could be the start of a whole revolution, a whole new era in their race's evolution.

Cautiously he had made contact with the scientist. There were records of Asher's work in the archives; small projects, slightly eccentric in nature. He had lived in Perihex for the last three centuries working in a manufacturing unit as as a lowly factory worker, submitting no research.

Why? Whitestar had asked him bluntly, the first time they had met. Why give up on science? Why not submit these plans directly to the Council? Why not go through the proper channels?

Why make this offer only to him and Skyfire?

Asher had had semi-satisfying answers to each of those. He had been a scientist for a long time now, and wanted a change; the Council would no longer listen to him since he changed professions and they ensured none of the administration would either. Whitestar and Skyfire, though, were different. They had successfully bucked the system before. They had proven conventional thinking to be wrong just by succeeding in their chosen careers and they were intelligent enough to be able to assess the value of his work for themselves.

It felt wrong. Everything Asher said made sense, every claim was verifiable and checked out, and it still felt wrong.

He made the old mech go through the procedure over and over, looking for flaws which failed to materialise. Asher even demonstrated on a drone for him. Not the same as a mech, true, but mucking about with a drone's primary processor was nearly as stupid as doing it to a mech, and this drone was fine. The procedure worked.

By preference Whitestar would have kept asking questions and for demonstrations until he was completely satisfied and had identified and obviated the source of his uneasiness. But there was no time. In four orns he would be off-planet, not due to return for almost a century. If he was going to be involved in this at all he had to make a choice, and quickly.

Well sometimes the only way forward was to take a risk.

Praying he was not making a fatal mistake, and that Skyfire would forgive him his boldness, he laid himself down on the surgical table.

"Do it."

* * *

Whitestar was in a foul mood when he returned to their apartment.

He had been going out for long periods 'finalising details' as he put it. Friends had told Skyfire he was spending much of his time doing research, but he never wanted to discuss what or why.

Was he checking their data? Had he found some reason to doubt their theories? Skyfire had tried to ask but Whitestar did not want to talk about it at all. Everything was fine, he insisted, he just wanted to sort out a few last things.

The problem with Whitestar was his competitive nature, Skyfire mused. The way he had had to struggle to get to where he was now meant he fought for everything. He always had to be right, to be the best, to be sure.

None of that explained his cold fury now.

"Is it the cellular regeneration model that's bothering you again?" he asked, knowing that problem had delayed their progress initially. "Mitosis works for technoorganics, but there's no evidence yet that..."

"The research is fine. It's _fine_."

"Then what? Star, talk to me. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I'm tired."

"You're lying. Why are you lying to me?"

"I don't want to talk about this."

"Do you want to stay here? Is that it? You don't want to go?"

"No! No, if I could I'd leave right now! We should be gone already."

"Why? What's the urgency?" He stopped suddenly, an idea occurring to him and chilling him to the core. "You got in a fight, didn't you? Primus, tell me you didn't kill someone."

"I should've." Whitestar hissed. "He deserved it."

Skyfire clutched at the doorframe.

"Are the Enforcers looking for you? Star, even if they just want to question you they'll delay us by orns, and then the Council might withdraw support..."

He cut himself off, desperately trying to think of a solution. This could ruin all of their plans; the mission might be cancelled entirely, or another pair sent in their place. The Council did not like scandal and was always quick to make an example.

"We _could_ go tonight." he considered. "We've had all the conversions and we know all the plans backwards. We've just got to collect the navigation module and we can go." Whitestar stared out the window, silent for a long moment.

"I've got it already." he said finally. "Lets go."

"Right now?"

"Yes. Right now."

* * *

Whitestar flew alongside his partner as they passed the final planet in the system and headed out into open space. Soon, he would have to reveal his lie. Soon, but not yet. He could save himself from his lover's disappointment and questions for just a little longer.

In truth, he did not have the portable navigator they had commissioned; just the processing capability to handle the calculations himself.

Stupid. How could he have been so _stupid_? He had known it was a trap and still fallen into it. And now it was too late to turn back.

The procedure itself had not been the trap. It had worked perfectly well, and he had known a moment of blissful exultation as he felt the extra systems begin to come online. But then he had run the synchronisation program and it had had a buried set of code inside.

Asher had tried to reprogram him.

He had been prepared in case of all kinds of things, mostly concerned about corrupted data. He had thought the worst that might happen was that the mech had been sloppy with his coding, not malicious. Frantically he had thrown up firewalls and contained the program, but not quite quickly enough to stop some of it getting through.

He snarled at the segment that had embedded itself into his base coding where he could not tamper with it: a desire to serve the Prime above all else. This whole elaborate ruse had been a recruitment pitch! He had heard rumours of mecha being reprogrammed to serve Megatron and had discounted them until now, but perhaps it was true. Perhaps that was why the proponents on each side were so fanatical. Perhaps they were all just victims like he was.

Maybe even Megatron was, himself.

The programming tugged at him and he clenched his fists. He would _not_ follow orders like a drone. He would never serve the Prime, _any_ Prime no matter how long he lived, if these were their methods.

Given time he would undo the programming. Somehow he would circumvent it, even if it meant deleting chunks of his own programming - insanity would be worth the cost.

And then he would come back and kill Asher and deal with the Prime.

Whatever it took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The scientist.


	13. The priest, 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fits with SoaL part 11, chapter 2

The doors opened ponderously and the members of the Conclave emerged led by the High Priest Dias. Circadian slipped into place behind Dias, ready to support the frail older mech, and the procession made its way across the courtyard to the Hall.

Dias was the eldest of the serving priests who had never had a single upgrade after reaching his majority. Although the Conclave had ruled four centuries earlier that upgrades were acceptable as a form of development Dias had stated that he would happily go when Primus called him just as their ancestors had. In the past his personal medic, Deepscan, had kept him functioning comfortably and it had seemed that the High Priest's retirement was far distant. But Deepscan had died along with almost all Cybertron's medics in the devastating virus that had ravaged the population at Ordan Helix during one of the medics' mass conferences.

There were rumours that there had been no such virus, or that it had been deliberately released, but the end result was the same: the medics were mostly gone and no-one dared to enter Ordan Helix for fear that there may be some contagion remaining, thus all that knowledge and research remained out of reach.

Taking Dias's arm at the elbow, he discreetly stabilised the older mech as they walked up the curved ramp towards the podium.

"We must be strong." Dias said softly. "Our civilization is crumbling, but we must not fail. We must be a rallying point to all who seek peace, and a light to illuminate the evil deeds of those who serve Unicron's designs."

"Of course, high one."

"They will do anything to sway us, to mask their intentions. We must not fall for their schemes. Primus does not wish for his children to fight amongst themselves, this conflict must end."

They reached the podium and Circadian stepped back into the shadows.

"My friends, the Conclave has prayed and conferred and the answer is clear. The one who has proclaimed himself as Prime is a pretender. He has not come to us for confirmation out of fear of our discovering the truth. His request for our support is denied: we will not be drawn into this unnecessary and violent conflict. I declare him false."

* * *

Silence, stillness. The start of a giggle, quickly stifled. Then a single shot, and a thump.

"You got it!" a young voice cheered, running ahead to find the downed turbofox.

Circadian handed his rifle to a nearby attendant and followed more sedately, his partner Simplex pacing evenly beside him but shaking his head in open dismay.

"Why did no-one tell me sparklings had this much energy?"

"I believe they did; you were unswayed."

"Cypher's petition was granted in the same session, and that sparklet's so well behaved."

"Every life is a gift."

"Praise Primus." Simplex responded reflexively, attention still focused ahead. "Purity don't run off! Aquatint, make sure he doesn't get in trouble please?"

The servant rushed ahead and Circadian waved his own attendant to go as well, leaving them to walk alone.

"It'll be better once he starts his formal classes." Simplex declared, as if trying to conince himself. "I'm considering enrolling him with Calliope, what do you think?"

"It's your decision to make."

"I know that, I'm asking your opinion."

"I don't have an opinion on this. You chose the programming for him, if you think that's best then that's fine."

Simplex frowned.

"You could take an interest. Perhaps if you did you wouldn't be thinking about doing such foolish things as..."

"Help!"

Circadian was pleased with the timing of the interruption. He knew what Simplex was going to say and did not want to argue again, particularly not where others could overhear.

Hurrying onwards, they found little Purity crouched near to where the deactivated turbofox had fallen. The pest had greyed, definitely dead, but there was a smaller one circling and nudging it.

Circadian frowned. The keepers were supposed to ensure there was no uncontrolled breeding, and that all juvenile turbofoxes were kept away from the hunting grounds. A clean shot was one thing, but leaving an immature creature to starve to death was cruel and unnecessary.

"Is it a sparkling?" Purity asked. "I didn't know turbofoxes had sparklings."

"They're techno-organic." Circadian explained. "They create their own sparks rather than petitioning Primus through Vector Sigma, and have even developed a non-manufactural method of frame formation. They absorb the metals they consume and use those materials to expand their frame and armour. See how much smaller it is?"

"It's incredible."

"It's despicable." Simplex corrected him, casting a warning glance at Circadian. "It exists outside the parameters Primus set for us and must be destroyed."

"D-destroyed? You mean deactivated?"

"Of course."

"But... but... no!"

Getting no traction with Simplex he turned to Circadian who shook his head gravely, gesturing to the attendant to shoot the pup.

"It will only starve without its creator's help, it's too young to be alone."

"But we could take it home. Couldn't we? We could look after it. We could... no!"

A second shot rang out, and this time there was no cheering at all.

* * *

Purity's wailing continued into the recharge cycle, pulling Simplex repeatedly from their berth to try to calm him, and finally Circadian gave up trying to rest and simply moved out onto the balcony with a cube of warmed energon to stare out across the city.

Death was such a difficult concept for sparklings, given that they lived in peace and the medics could fix almost anything it was such a rare occurrance in their species.

Rather, it had _been_ such a rare occurrance, but that was before the loss of the medics, before the energon shortage riots and factionalisation that put everyone at risk. The reality Purity would grow up to live in would be quite different to the one they had known for so long; that much was certain.

~Cade, have you seen that thermal blanket Glowbulb loaned us?~ Simplex called, sounding frantic.

~I think it's in the storage space under our berth. Sim, why don't you let him just sit up for a bit? He's just frightened.~

~Stay out of this, he's _my_ responsibility not yours. You've made that perfectly clear.~

Circadian sighed, idly swirling the energon in its cube. It was important that Purity learned about death, that was the whole reason Simplex had insisted on attending the orn's hunt even though he usually avoided it himself. Privately Circadian felt Simplex was pushing the sparkling too far, too fast, but it was a thought he had to keep to himself because it was partly his fault.

Their match had been determined long before they ever met, just as such things had always been done in the Towers. It was not a bad system, and if their unions lacked some of the passion of the popular tales they were at least stable and and supportive.

He and Simplex shared few interests but they lived together contentedly enough. Even this desire of his mate's to have a sparkling had been worked out amicably, though Circadian had no such wish himself. As it turned out, Purity would ease the transition for Simplex when Circadian's circumstances changed, something which was now imminent following the recent Conclave announcement.

Simplex was an attendant at Vector Sigma's chamber, one of many; Circadian was the chief attendant to Dias himself. Such a role could not be handed to any simple servant. Programmed for the role before activation supplemented by centuries of training in ritual and form and tradition made him what he was today, and sometime soon he would be initiated into the upper ranks, permitted access into the sacred chamber where Dias made direct contact with Primus himself.

Unfortunately the one thing that could not be programmed or trained into him was the desire to actually want the job. And he didn't.

In the past few vorns he had heard many things that made him question his role. Made him question the direction of the priesthood as a whole, in fact. While his friends and colleagues dismissed the factional disturbances as rabble violence he found himself wondering if there might not be more to it and now he saw no option but to act on his convictions.

Purity's keening trailed off again, and Circadian wondered if this time he might actually charge for awhile. A breem later Simplex joined him on the balcony, slumping into a chair and Circadian offered him the untouched cube he was still holding.

"What am I going to do with him when you're not here to help?" Simplex grumbled, accepting the cube.

"I do little enough now; I'm sure you will cope."

"It doesn't have to be this way, though. If you're that set on things being wrong then why not stay and fix them? You'll be in the best possible place to do it, with direct access to the High Priest himself..."

"My mind is made up."

"Once you've done this, there's no turning back."

"I know."

Simplex sighed heavily.

"Well, Primus has a different path for each of us." he paraphrased. "When?"

"Two nights from now."

"Alright. I'll organise someone to watch Purity. But if you change your mind, just let me know."

"I won't. Don't let me down, Simplex."

The only reply was a sour grunt.

* * *

Circadian looked up sharply as the temple door opened, then relaxed slightly as he recognised Simplex. He had begun to worry that his mate was going to back out of their agreement. It was a great deal to ask of anyone, and if this went wrong then Simplex would be exiled just as surely as he would.

In spite of the time slipping away he held his peace while Simplex paused to make his obeisance to the main pillar, but when the other mech moved into the third iteration of the same prayer he lost patience.

"You're stalling. The longer this takes, the more likely someone will come."

"You're asking a lot." Simplex glared at him. "This could get me exiled."

"There's nothing illegal about performing a naming ceremony. You've been doing this since you were a century old."

"This isn't the same. You _have_ a name, consecrated and recorded in the annals."

"You agreed to this."

"You tricked me into it."

Circadian frowned deeply at the accusation and Simplex looked away flustered.

"Alright, that was uncalled for, I apologise. But truly, Cade, what you're doing is _wrong_. You have so much here, why do you want to give it all up? What do you gain from this? Here, you could do something, even now you could influence some of the decisions. As a streetmech what influence will you have?"

"If you won't do this, I will go without it." Circadian warned.

It was a bluff. While he felt very strongly that he was doing the right thing, he was not sure he could bring himself to betray his life's purpose without this step. This was more than just deciding to take on a new use-name. He would effectively be reborn as an entirely new mech with no past and no commitments. Circadian would be dead. That would preserve the memory of the acolyte he had been, and Simplex's honour. Anything less, and he would simply be a runaway.

"Primus forgive me." Simplex murmured, shaking his head, then gestured roughly to the dais. "Go then. Lets get this over with."


	14. The priest, 2

Finding his way to the Autobot headquarters was not difficult. Getting inside was more so.

All new recruits were expected to start with basic combat training and he had no desire to waste his time on that. Being merely one more nameless soldier would serve no-one, he wanted to be somewhere that he could make a difference. Besides which, he would prefer to be in a position where he could take some responsibility for the lives he would inevitably be compelled to take; he would not kill innocents.

Careful research had identified the best option, and the use of almost every credit he had stashed away paid for the upgrades that would ensure his success. He merely had to be accepted into the role which was why he was now here in this office, drawing on vorns of experience in working with the highly ranked to conceal his anxiety. This had to go well.

"I wish to join your unit."

The ex-Decepticon looked at him sceptically.

"My unit? What unit is that?"

"The one euphemistically called 'special' operations. I could be of use to you."

"I doubt it." Curveball snorted.

"Then you would be wrong." Mirage told him coolly.

"Look... what did you say your name was?"

"Mirage."

"Fine. Look, Mirage, you're a Towers mech. Go back to your prayers and parties and hunts and leave the dirty work to us low-lifes."

"I have already left them. I know what I want."

Curveball folded his arms, considering him for a moment.

"You've got to know that High Priest Dias has declared the Autobots heretics and the Prime a fake. Aren't you worried he might be right?"

"The role of the priests is to connect all Cybertronians to Primus and to serve the Prime, not to question those two tasks. The seniors know this but they are cowards and fear this Prime's warrior nature: there has not been a warrior Prime since Straxus who nearly destroyed us. They fear Optimus will do the same."

"And you don't?"

"I do not believe it is our place to choose."

"Isn't that heresy itself, though? Going against the decree of the High Priest?"

"Yes." Mirage admitted.

"So you've recanted your vows?"

"I am not a priest."

"So you've exiled yourself, and now you want shelter from us?"

"I have skills to offer. I..."

"Why _my_ unit?" Curveball rudely interrupted. "There are recruiters everywhere - why come to me?"

"I am no crude soldier. I have no intention of becoming cannon fodder for Decepticon target practice, or of wasting time inciting riots in the streets. What I offer is more refined than that. I am an excellent shot, with skills developed in the hunt; I am swift, I can outpace many so-called racing models; I am versed in..."

"Get to the point. Give me one reason why you're so special. One _good_ reason."

Mirage stared at him for a moment, aware that everything now depended on this demonstration, then vanished.

* * *

Mirage held perfectly still as the agents arrived and made their reports, blessing endless vorns of tedious ceremony that had taught him to quiet his systems and trained him out of any habits of fidgeting.

The range of mecha reporting to Curveball surprised him. Their accents and frame models were representative of the entire planet, and almost half were femmes. There were even three with the precise syntax and intonation of the Towers, and those caught his attention. One he vaguely recognised as a servant, though could not place exactly which House the mech worked for, but the others were entirely unfamiliar.

Based on the information the last of them presented, it seemed he may even be an ordained priest - no servant could have been in a position to attend such meetings. He was musing on that revelation when a hefty dock worker swaggered in and went straight to the sideboard to pour some energon out of the decanter there.

"Y'want some?" he asked.

"I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow." Curveball told him, apparently unconcerned at this disrespectful behaviour.

"Aw, boss, you know I jus' love surpassin' your expectations."

"I had noticed." Curveball agreed, accepting the cube handed to him. "Who is the third one for?"

The stranger, sat on the edge of Curveball's desk, staring straight at Mirage over the rim of his cube.

"Very funny. It's for your spy. Who, by the way, is gonna be polite an' introduce himself soon or I'm gonna start thinkin' he's here uninvited."

Mirage gaped. This mech could not possibly have seen or heard him, so how did he know he was here? Curveball just shrugged, glancing to the left of where Mirage actually stood, to where he had been when he had cloaked himself.

"Might as well present yourself, Mirage, there's no point pretending when he knows you're here."

Disengaging the disruptor field, Mirage watched the newcomer carefully for some sign of shock, but it seemed as though this mech had known exactly where he was.

"He's not bad." he commented to Curveball, looking over Mirage critically as if inspecting a new drone. "The tech's nice too, but then Towers can afford the development costs, eh? Shame he won't work out."

Stepping forward, Mirage glared at him.

"What makes you so certain of that?" he asked frostily.

The mech considered him for a moment, then set his cube down on the desk and straightened to his full height before speaking in a clear and pure Towers accent.

"Do you believe, perhaps, that you are the first of your type to approach Curveball and offer assistance? Such an assumption would be foolish. Others have made the attempt and have failed because to them it is merely a diversion. A time filler. To do this work you must truly dedicate yourself to it, to the exclusion of your vows, something much more difficult to do than to promise. I doubt very much that one so exalted as yourself could survive the transition."

"You are from the Towers?" Mirage whispered, trying to reconcile the frame with the incongruent syntax.

The mech snorted and headed for the door.

"He's slaggin' a waste o'your time, CB. Put him outta his misery before he gets himself killed. Or someone else. I'll make my report later, when we're alone."

The door closed and Mirage turned to Curveball.

"Who was that?"

Curveball smiled.

"My best agent. Meister."

"How did he know I was here?"

"No idea. That's what makes him the best. And you've caught his interest, at least, and that's impressive for any new recruit. So, lets talk about finding you some work to do."

* * *

Mirage thought he had prepared himself for this change. He had known that there would be few of the luxuries he was accustomed to. But this was one step too far.

Sitting miserably on his bunk he rubbed at his plating in a poor effort to remove the layer of grime he had accumulated just by being in this lower level smog. He desperately needed to wash, a proper and _private_ wash, but that was simply not possible.

Bad enough that there were no private rooms, bad enough that the fuel served in the commissary was less than seventy percent pure, but he had never anticipated the horror of being spattered in the filth of others who were sharing the same cleaning space. And for some reason he had not yet discovered, each Autobot was only permitted one session in the racks per orn unless they did a double shift. Worse, as part of the special ops unit he did not even have the option of requesting extra duty shifts: his work was assigned as Curveball saw fit, and so far the CSO had given him nothing to do other than to settle in.

"So I hear the boss's taken you on after all."

Mirage looked up at the familiar accent, expecting Meister, but instead found himself looking at a sleek white racer with black detailing.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

The racer sat down at the end of his berth, putting his pedes up on a spare chair and folding his arms.

"Nope, ya don't. Name's Jazz."

"Oh. I thought... Forgive me, it doesn't matter."

Jazz looked amused.

"Thought I was someone else? Who knows, maybe I was. Maybe you were, too."

"I beg your pardon?"

"CB knows all about ya, Circadian."

"My name is Mirage. You have me mistaken for someone else."

"Yup, that's it exactly." his companion nodded agreeably.

"Please leave me alone, I do not appreciate your company."

Jazz's grin widened.

"Appreciate it or not, mech, you an' me we're gonna be seein' a fair bit o'each other. Least til you're settled in an' he's happy t'let you run on your own."

"You mean until he trusts me."

Now Jazz laughed out loud and clapped him on the back with entirely inappropriate familiarity.

"That mech don't trust _nobody_. Never will, either. Now come on, we got work t'do."

"An assignment?"

"Of sorts. You'll see."

Jazz worked for the quartermaster and had been ordered to purchase various items. He also did a bit of work for Curveball on the side, and the CSO had asked him to show Mirage around. Mirage's role was to track him as he did his errands, noting down details about every contact without being seen.

It was more difficult than it sounded. The streets were crowded and Jazz was forever stopping abruptly or ducking into alleyways or jumping onto transit shuttles without warning. Twice when Mirage lost him entirely he would pop up again and draw attention to himself - calling out to a friend or enthusing loudly over a purchase.

It gave Mirage the demoralising sense that he was being toyed with.

When Jazz finally led him back to a cafe near the barracks and gestured for him to come out of the shadows, he was so exhausted he did not even protest the unpleasantly familiar pat on the shoulder.

"Not bad, not bad at all! Course, half the time you were spotted, but..."

"By whom?" Mirage protested indignantly.

"Doesn't matter who. Here, lets get somethin' t'eat. This place does the best sulphur ices in the district. On me; you find a seat."

Unhappy, Mirage looked around the room for an empty table but could not see one. Most of the tables were designed to seat at least ten mecha and there was someone already at each booth. Jazz joined him again after a moment, laughing good-naturedly and pulling him over to a table where there were two spaces free on the end then immediately began introducing Mirage to everyone else there.

Mirage ended up sitting next to a bulky cargomech named Surelift who chattered almost continuously about an upcoming festival. He endured it silently, eating his meal and conceding that it was quite good, relieved when Jazz finally rose and made their apologies to the others then guided him out.

"Right. You gotta go report in to Chief Curveball. I'll see you tomorrow an' we'll do it again. See ya!"

Tired enough that even the thought of the communal washracks no longer worried him, he headed to the main office block in the heart of the Autobot compound and found that Curveball was indeed waiting for him. But the questions he was asked had nothing whatsoever to do with the trip around the city: his supervisor wanted to know every detail of the mechs they'd eaten with, and to his shame the only one Mirage could name was Surelift.

"First lesson, then." Curveball grunted at him. "Watch everything and everyone all the time. My staff are _never_ off duty. Now get out - do better tomorrow or I'll send you to Ironhide and see if _he_ has a use for you."

Leaving the office Mirage paused in the corridor trying to remember why he had ever thought this move was a good idea.


	15. The priest, 3

Mirage tailed the new inductee, slightly nostalgic at the memory of his own naivete as he had gone through this process eleven vorns earlier. Much had changed since then, but much was also the same. Skirmishes with the Decepticons continued, sometimes in violent clashes of soldiers, sometimes through more covert means, but there was a sense of increasing desperation.

Mirage had seen Optimus Prime speak several times, addressing the troops, and he had few doubts that this mech truly was a Prime even though the priests continued to denounce him. Dias had died three vorns after Circadian left and had been replaced by Omniscia, one of the very few femme priests. She had not been Dias's preferred successor; clearly politics continued to control decisions.

This inductee might actually be worth the training time, he mused as they reached the causeway and one of the spotters signalled positively to Mirage. The choice of name was unfortunate, 'Spy' was hardly imaginative, but he was clearly talented.

~Mirage?~

~Yes, Stodge?~

~Hey, I told you, I'm being Dripfeed today, remember?~

~This is a private comm channel and your _name_ is Stodge. Now what did you want?~

~Boss wants you to go in. I'm taking over following. He's got a job for you.~

Mirage considered pointing out that those sentences could have been better arranged for comprehension, but decided not to. Likely the mech would not understand in any case.

Leaving the chase, he transformed and moved up onto the causeway and headed back towards the barracks. His distinctive form made him easy for the gate guards to recognise but they still had him give the passcode before they let him in - with sorcelling always a possibility, one could never be too careful.

Reaching Curveball's office he found the door closed and waited quietly for a few minutes until it opened. Curveball's administrative assistant, the hard-worn Stargazer, scuttled out and down the corridor muttering to himself. Mirage frowned as a few phrases reached him, but entered.

"What're you frowning about?"

"That mech talks too much about things he should not."

"You always say that."

"It is always true. Stodge said you have a mission for me."

"Yeah. I do. Missing agent, I need someone to go in _quietly_ and find him."

"Very well."

"So quick to accept, aren't you? You're not even going to ask where you're going?"

"Is it important?"

"Maybe, but I still need you to go."

"I have been to Darkmount twice already."

"This'll be worse. I'm sending you home."

Mirage was about to ask what he meant, then realised.

"The Towers?"

"That's right. This is an important one, you've got to be careful. You get lost, I'll be upset. You muck up my agents in the Towers, I'll track you down and deal with you personally."

Definitely not a pleasant prospect.

"That will not be necessary. I will be careful."

"See that you are. Info's on the pad. Do it right, Mirage: this one's important."

* * *

Mirage slipped along the shadowy corridor, wondering for the first time if he should have accepted Curveball's repeated offer of the sorcelling upgrades. Almost as quickly he dismissed the thought again. It was not right to conceal one's identity in such a way, and not at all necessary with the cloaking technology he had had designed. Besides, being seen and acknowledged would only open himself up to needing to lie about his identity and intentions. Some might think that that was an inevitable part of this job, but there was always another way though it may be more difficult. He would be true to himself no matter the provocation.

He was not at all ashamed of his heritage. He had not left the Towers out of some selfish desire to reject his upbringing: it was not his belief in Primus he recanted, merely his faith in those who professed to speak for Him. To fail to acknowledge His chosen avatar, the Prime, was to fail to do their duty. They took the easy route rather than the correct one. With time perhaps they would address that error of judgement but he could not in conscience have waited any longer for that to occur. He had had to act.

Still, he had never imagined having to return here, to gather information from amongst his former peers. It was... uncomfortable.

The sound of voices ahead made him flick on his disruptor field and press himself up against a wall. A small group ambled past, two senior priests flanked by their attendants, heading for the Eighth Call devotions no doubt. Once they were gone he turned off the field, saving his energy stores, and moved on.

Such a change since he had last been here. As well as the normal attendants those priests had been shadowed by military models, bodyguards. He might have dismissed it as mere flamboyance to pretend to need security so deep within the complex, but they were not the first he had seen. It seemed that everyone had a personal guard now. On his way in through the living areas he had even seen a soldier cleaning his rifle in full view of a sparkling. It was unprecedented.

Curveball had warned him that the Towers had changed in his absence, but he would never have believed it without seeing it. Now he just wished he had thought to try to take Simplex with him, if only to spare that gentle soul the distress of so many crude strangers in their surroundings.

It would never have worked, he reminded himself. Simplex would never have left the Towers willingly and Mirage would never have forced him to go. And even if he had managed to persuade him, those first few vorns outside amongst the general masses had been hard enough for himself; Simplex would never have coped.

Shaking off those thoughts he turned down another corridor, going deeper into the maze. This was one of the main reasons he had been asked to undertake this mission: he knew his way around these lower levels with as much confidence as Jazz had in the Iaconian streets.

Jazz. Now there was a conundrum of a mech. He was all but certain Jazz was Meister, sorcelled. He had never seen the technique used but he understood the basics of how it worked, and it seemed plausible.

Was it just another of Curveball's tests, though? That question had made him hesitate for vorns. The ex-Decepticon loved to place seemingly obvious answers in front of you to conceal a deeper truth. And this did seem rather obvious. Jazz's accent was the same as the first one Meister had used, and the first time Jazz had spoken to him he had made some teasing comment about being someone else and had likened himself to Mirage's connection to Circadian.

At the same time, it seemed rather unlikely. Jazz was simple, naive even. He had a seemingly endless number of friends, all of whom he kept up with and that must take quite some portion of his time. He also always had a verifiable alibi. A few times Mirage had followed Jazz when he knew Meister was on a mission, and Jazz had never seemed to be aware he was being followed. Then again...

More mechs approaching, these ones in a great hurry. As they should be: they were late for their devotions. There would be penance for that lapse. He smiled faintly at his own slight anxiety as they swept past. As a Towers-raised attendant he had never been involved in the rites, but had always attended and he had never once been late. Outside the Towers he had quickly lost the rhythm of that pattern but in the groons since arriving back he had found himself itching to find a prayer alter. Foolish. That was Circadian's life; Mirage held to his faith in Primus, not in the empty rituals of the corrupt priesthood.

His smile soured and he moved on, the corridors quite quiet now with everyone busy. He had left the Towers because of the wrong-headed decision about the new Prime. But he would never have believed the truth of how deep the corruption ran. The Towers were not universally regarded in a positive light. Many normal mecha had never met a priest, or only when applying for permission to call for a spark from Vector Sigma. Such requests were turned down on an alarmingly regular basis for what were the most spurious of reasons. It was very well for the Vector Sigma priests to say that a creator must prove worthy of the gift of one of Primus's children, but how was it that the wealthy were deemed more worthy than the poor? And that was not even beginning on the energon hoarding when outside the walls there were mecha starving into deactivation.

Reaching his destination he settled in to one side of the door, preparing to wait patiently for the right opportunity, not just the first to present itself. He was not in a rush. He could happily wait for orns if necessary. What mattered was that he remained unnoticed, not the speed at which he completed his missions. Eventually someone would enter or leave in such a way that the door would hang open and he could slip through. He just had to wait.

The opportunity came sooner than he had expected, just a joor after he arrived. A servant corralling four drones pushing trolleys chose to rush ahead and open the door then had to rush back again to get them moving in the right direction. Mirage wasted no time and was inside before he had a chance to turn around once more.

In spite of the fact that no-one could see him, he paused to one side and made his obeisance to the central pillar before moving across to a dark alcove. This room was one of the most sacred in the complex, the Chamber of Preparation. Newly built frames were brought here to be presented to Primus, bathed in the light of the Great Spark. He had accompanied Simplex here before their own sparkling had been activated, watching somewhat nervously as the frame was set on the plinth in the direct glow of the crystal-encapsulated presence.

As far as he had been able to tell - then, or now - the Great Spark seemed to be a large spark many times the size of any ever required by any mech. It was not, as he understood it, the Allspark from where all sparks came and to where all returned at the end of their time, but it was a sacred energy source. A frame placed before it would be judged, and if judged unfit to house a spark then the glow would turn from the cool mauve into a sickly green and the prospective creators would be dismissed.

Mirage was not here to witness this process, though he may well end up doing so more than once before his task was complete. He was here because one of Curveball's deep cover agents had not reported in as expected and it was feared he had been discovered but none of the other agents here had been able to verify that one way or the other.

If he had been unveiled as a spy there would not have been a stir, Mirage knew. The mech would simply have disappeared into the contemplation cells. They were where the most dedicated priests went and attempted to make contact with Primus directly by separating themselves from all contact with anyone else. A modest number of provisions were placed within the cell and then it was sealed for one century.

Generally speaking, the priests were discovered in stasis lock in spite of their efforts. Occasionally some actually died, their grey powdered frames locked into a rigid posture. Very, very rarely, one emerged frail but alive and conscious, protected by Primus. Dias had been one such.

A suspected spy, on the other hand, would be put in with no preparation or provisions and without the training to reach for assistance would certainly perish long before the chamber was unsealed.

So. Mirage's first priority was to prove that the mech still functioned and was still attending to his duties. And since he was scheduled to work in this chamber for some of his duties, he would be here eventually. Or not. If a decaorn passed without Mirage seeing him, there was very little hope.

The servant finally finished fussing with the drones, having made his deliveries, and headed back out, and Mirage took advantage of the temporary privacy to quickly scale the ornate pillar to his left and settle on top of it, sheltered by the inverted arches that reached up to the vaulted ceiling. From up here he could see everything but not be seen so long as he kept his optics dimmed and kept still. Another reason to wait in this place rather than trying elsewhere. And once again, he waited.


	16. The priest, 4

He had lived in the towers for more than two centuries. He had been an Autobot for eleven vorns. And in all that time, he had known his role and had been ready to do his duty, whatever was required. But after only two short orns of watching proceedings from his concealment atop the pillar he wished he could abandon the mission and never again return. So much for his proud heritage: much of it now seemed to be a fraud, and he had been fooled by it as completely as any outsider.

Confusion had turned to horror, then to nausea, then to numbness as he saw the extent of the corruption. He had watched the Great Spark attendants taking bribes to ensure there would be no complications in their application, had seen servants stealing the rejected frames to sell on to other supplicants rather than melting them down as was expected, had witnessed priests dozing through the sacred Third Call rites. Twice he had observed senior priests hurrying in late for their devotions without so much as a glance at the central pillar, a sacrilege for which any acolyte or attendant would be flogged, but no-one seemed to even notice or care.

Much of the time the colouration of the light that bathed the prospective mentors' newling frames was manipulated by subtle hologram work, controlled by the jaded priests. Twice, though, Mirage saw the light change to green when hefty bribes had been exchanged and when the instigators did not seem to be involved. The intensity of that colour was unmistakably different to that of the hoax version, but the supplicants had no basis for comparison so had no way of knowing the difference. Both times, he noted sourly, the explanation was that the 'donation' had not been sufficient and more would be required in future; there was certainly no refund made, just empty platitudes about the need for all to bow to Primus's will.

The constancy and casual nature of the scam made him certain that all of the chamber attendants were aware of what was occurring, from the lowliest assistant to the most senior priest, but in spite of that the only time he found himself flinching away was when Simplex took part. It seemed he had never really known his former mate at all. Small wonder Simplex could not understand Circadian's distress over the actions of the Conclave, the denouncement of a Prime was no more stunning than anything that happened in here on a scheduled basis.

I was the naive one, Mirage mused unhappily.

In any case, in spite of his dismay he held to his job. So far he had not seen his target, but that did not mean he could simply stop paying attention.

He did not know the agent's codename, let alone the name he was using here, but he had a description: a Praxian model who walked with a limp, hummed a lot, had a grey chevron and lived on this level. If he lived on this level and was still here, he must come into this room at some point. It was inevitable. Still, the possibilities were narrowing even after just two orns.

He had not been at Third Call devotions, so he could not be a priest. There were five Praxians in the group who had attended that service but none of them matched the description. So, he must be something else - an attendant, a servant, an acolyte. Perhaps even a bodyguard. He just needed to be patient. But even as he thought that the door opened and he heard a soft, cheerful humming. He looked down into the currently empty room as the newcomer hobbled inside and he found himself staring in shock.

He had expected such an important agent to be in a somewhat important role. This mech was certainly not that: he was a Grubber, a mech whose upgrades had gone wrong somehow and had been taken in by the Towers as a charit case for the lowliest of tasks. Surely this could not be Curveball's agent?

The Grubber's optics were so dim as to be entirely useless; no doubt he navigated using the sensors in his doorwings. His left leg was significantly longer than his right, causing the limp, and his chevron was pitted and scarred. It was not grey in colouration, it was partially corroded from lack of a good energy supply.

These mistakes were what that farce of a ceremony before the Great Spark were intended to avoid, trying to protect the sparks Primus granted from the horrors of a bad upgrade, a tradition that went back into the time before recorded history. The establishment of Ordan Helix and the medical profession following the great war had led to great advances in preventing such mistakes, but even they had never been able to entirely eradicate the problem and once things had gone wrong there was little that could be done. Not without significant expense, in any case, and the most common reason for the problems in the first place was the use of substandard materials in construction of the adult frame.

While living in the Towers he had been aware of the Grubbers in the same way he had been aware of the furnishings in his quarters; they were there, he did not interact with them. Now that he had to speak to one, he was unsure how to begin. Tower lore taught that only those who spurned Primus and were unworthy ever had such problems, and he had not questioned that.

There was so very much he had been taught that he should have questioned.

Silently climbing down, using his disruptor field to ensure he could not be seen, he watched for a moment as the Grubber cheerfully polished the plinth where the sparkling frames were placed. He knew how to give orders, but he had never heard anyone speak to a Grubber with any intention of receiving a response. He had always been told they lacked the intelligence to converse.

"Excuse me." he began awkwardly.

The Grubber's humming faltered and he grovelled immediately, not even turning to face Mirage. Not that he would have seen anything if he had.

"Does the codephrase 'Techina Rocket' mean anything to you?"

The Grubber squirmed, bowing even lower in apology until his face was practically rubbing against the floorplates, unintelligible noises emerging from his vocaliser.

He could not speak, Mirage realised uncomfortably. The upgrade errors must have extended into corruption of his base programming. It was an awful realisation and made him feel deeply uncomfortable. Just how damaged _was_ this mech? And how was he supposed to get a coherent report out of him?

While he had dithered, the Grubber had pulled a small item out of a small pouch worn around his waist - the carrier clearly a replacement for the subspace pocket that must also be absent - and a quiet tonal clicking filled the room. Unable to vocalise, the mech was using the most basic of their languages: binary click.

*Yes. Agent.*

"Are you the one I am looking for?"

A single mid-pitched click.

*Yes.*

"Do you have anything to report?"

*Yes. Meet here. 2.932 joors.*

Then the Grubber turned away from him and rose and began humming and polishing again as though Mirage were no longer present.

Rather put out by the abrupt dismissal, Mirage considering demanding the information now. But that was amateur petulance and he would not stoop to it. The agent would know better than him the routines that must be observed to avoid suspicion; it was best to wait.

And if nothing else, it would give him time to prepare, in case it was a trap.

* * *

The Grubber returned nearly two full breems ahead of schedule and Mirage studied him silently from his new hiding place in an alcove in the corridor. It appeared he was alone. Mirage watched as he walked inside, and clicked a short word: follow. Then the Grubber headed off, and Mirage did cautiously as he had been bid.

It could still be a trap, but it seemed less likely now. The corridors they traversed were empty but that was no concern, it was perfectly normal given how late it was.

Eventually they reached an old storeroom. It, too, was empty and the Grubber paused in the centre until the door closed, then bowed his head. There was a soft grinding sound, a little like a transformation sequence though Mirage could see no movement in his plates, then the Grubber's helm raised again and he paced back to the door to lock it.

"I suppose," he said huskily, "Curveball did not bother to warn you of my disguise?"

The shock of hearing lucid, well enunciated speech from the Grubber left him initially unable to answer, and his host - the agent - sighed and hobbled over to a chair, easing himself into it.

"He never does. Never mind, at least you did not simply give up upon realising what I seemed to be. If you had not already done so, you've just proven yourself competent for your job. You _are_ a strange one though, no question of that. Spies are not supposed to be known. Anonymity is an ops bot's protection, and yet you continue to use the same designation and refuse all disguise. You are arrogant in your confidence."

Mirage frowned at the rebuke but revealed himself and stalked over to a spare chair.

"That is your opinion. Meister."

The other mech laughed.

"Meister? Flattering, but wrong. No, I'm a long-term agent, deep cover. Meister is far too valuable to waste on something this slow and tedious. I worked with him for a bit, he's the one who taught me to sorcel enough to hide my vocalisations here, but I couldn't keep up with him. Few can."

"Who are you, then?"

"My code name is Shadow."

"We have not met."

"Not as agents, not to talk." Shadow agreed. "But I was here before you left the Towers. I saw you and I could tell you were dissatisfied. I thought you might do something foolish and get yourself killed, but you surprised me by leaving. Perhaps you deserve some of that arrogance after all."

"You watched me? Why didn't you say something?"

Shadow shook his head.

"I don't speak to anyone except to agents who come for my reports. Ever. That is my role. It is not as flamboyant or rewarding as some, but it's what I do. It's what I was asked to do to support the fight against Megatron's evil plans, and I do it willingly. You wouldn't, in my place, now would you?"

"It is a lie. It is not who you are."

"And is what you do any more honourable? What about the mate and sparkling you left behind? What would they think of the things you have done since you left them?"

"It is not your place to judge, nor theirs."

"Nor yours." Shadow pointed out, then reached into the subspace pocket Mirage had believed must not exist. "Well, each to his own path. Here, my report is on this crystal. Tell Curveball it's getting harder for me to make the scheduled contacts. The number of military mechs around here is increasing and they don't like Grubbers at all. There have been accidents already."

"The military cannot take over the Towers." Mirage disputed.

"Now you are being naive. The signs are here. It won't be long, believe me. A vorn or two, perhaps. When they're ready, the Towers will fall just like Ordan Helix did, and your former lover Simplex is right at the core of it."

"Simplex?" Mirage blurted, startled, then corrected himself. "No, that does not matter. What do you mean about Ordan Helix? The deaths there were the result of a virus, were they not?"

"It was a massacre." Shadow said bluntly. "Thousands cut down and smelted, no care for age or rank; I got missed only because I was clever enough to paint myself grey and lie still amongst the dead until I could escape. It was the reason I joined the Autobots, and that was only the beginning. They are out to kill us all, my friend, and no-one is doing enough to stop them, but I would rather try than lie down again and let them win."

* * *

The short conversation with Shadow had shaken him hard, and although he should now be leaving he found himself heading up the spiral ramps into the Towers themselves. It was against his orders, and taking a huge risk given the data crystal he was carrying, but he could not simply leave. Not yet.

Moving through these halls was much more of a challenge than navigating the maze below ground level. For one thing there was much more traffic, regardless of the time. For another, he was plagued by painful memories and fears of what he would find.

He went first to the quarters he had once shared with Simplex, but realised quickly that they were now inhabited by a different couple. Some careful database searching quickly revealed his former partner's new residence three floors higher. Simplex had clearly done well for himself since Circadian's 'death', finding a new mate and earning a promotion. In a way, Mirage was pleased for him. But Shadow's comment looped in his memory, making him worry.

Surely Simplex was an unwitting accomplice to whatever was going on? Surely he would not endanger others, his friends and colleagues and new mate? And yet Mirage had watched him take bribes and callously dismiss those upset when their request for a sparkling was denied. He was harder and harsher than Mirage would have believed.

Had he always been like that and Circadian simply not noticed, or had he changed when he was left alone? The thought was not pleasant, either way.

Reaching his destination he found two guards on duty just outside the door but the door itself was wide open. Smirking at their foolishness he strode inside and then had to leap out of the way hurriedly as a messenger rushed towards the corridor. Luck, then, that the door had been open, that he had approached at precisely the right moment.

Raised voices from one of the rooms made him head in that direction but the door was closed. The argument seemed to be about the seating arrangements for an upcoming function, and he absently set a tiny recorder near the door to capture what was said in case it proved useful, then continued to explore the apartment.

The berthrooms were empty and held nothing of interest. The living area was well appointed but not homely and the dining area was nearly as large. Obviously they entertained guests on a regular basis. No real surprise there; Simplex loved to host parties.

The arguing mechs moved through to the living area, their conversation now on the delicacies to be served, and Mirage collected his recorder and took the opportunity to investigate the room they had just left. It was a personal study, and he found the usual priestly accoutrements. But the datapad left on the desk was not a spiritual reading nor a partially prepared sermon: it was a half-drafted letter from Simplex to someone called Swindle.

Swindle had apparently offered a large number of weapons in exchange for more approvals on sparkling creations, and Simplex was responding positively. The deal would go ahead. The military would get their desired sparklings and the Towers would get the weapons.

Why in the name of Primus would Simplex want weapons? Was he preparing for a siege from the Decepticons? But then he should be stockpiling resources and defences. And what of the soldiers in the halls? If Megatron attacked, what would stop them from staying loyal to their kind and turning on the priests just as Shadow said had happened to the medics at Ordan Helix?

Nothing, he realised sickly. It would play right into their hands.

Hearing movement outside the room he quickly hid himself, pressing up against a wall so he was out of the way. To his surprise, and some relief, it was Simplex himself and the mech reflexively locked the door as he entered before moving over to the desk. De-cloaking, Mirage strode silently up behind him.

"Simplex."

His former partner cried out in shock, spinning out of the chair and staring at him.

"Who ar...? _Cade_?"

"I am Mirage."

"What? How did you get in here?"

"That doesn't matter. Simplex, the Decepticons are dangerous. You have to get the military out of the Towers. Now. Before it's too late."

Simplex folded his arms tightly over his chest, regaining his composure.

"Typical Circadian, everything's always a drama to you, isn't it? Have you been having fun, running free of your responsibilities?"

"Simplex, please..."

"No. I have no time for this. I have no idea why you came back, and even less how you managed to get in here without the guards stopping you, but you can leave just the way you came. You're dead to me. Go away."

"I'm trying to save your life."

"By ruining it?" Simplex shrilled. "Do you know how hard it was after you went? They asked me over and over where you had gone until I thought I would go crazy. If Obsidian hadn't taken me in they might even have demoted me to a junior role. It would have taken a millennium to get back to the rank I had when I was activated!"

"I'm sorry, but..."

"You're sorry, _but_? But nothing. I want nothing to do with you anymore. You wanted to leave, well you took your chance now leave me alone. If I ever see you again I'm going to call the guards. Now go. I'm going out and when I come back in a breem you had better be gone. Forever."

* * *

Soft steps warned him of someone approaching and after a moment a mostly-white figure settled beside him on the balcony. They sat silently for awhile, staring over the cityscape.

"Is he going to send me away?" Mirage asked finally.

"Nah, mech. It's all good."

"No. It's not good. None of it is good."

"Ain't ever easy goin' home."

"You've experienced it yourself, Jazz?"

"Not me, no. Don't even know where I'm from, originally. Can't remember."

"You can't remember?" Mirage echoed, turning his head finally.

Jazz's expression was faintly troubled, unusual for him, but it faded quickly.

"Story for another time, I think. Anyway, doesn't change the fact that you ain't exactly the first to try t'stop all this madness."

"He didn't listen. I didn't even get to explain."

Jazz sighed.

"It mightn't be that bad. We know what's goin' on. Maybe Prime can convince the High Council an' get somethin' done."

"Is that likely?"

"It's possible. Crazier things've happened, that's for sure."

"Curveball was furious that I had spoken to Simplex." Mirage grimaced, remembering the lecture he had gotten.

"Yeah, he was. Still is, so you'd better keep a low profile for awhile. But he'll get over it. I've done worse in my time."

"But you're different. You're Meister."

Jazz gave a faint smile.

"Took ya long enough t'come out an' say it."

"I wanted to be sure. And I wasn't sure that _you_ knew."

"Sometimes I don't." Jazz allowed philosophically.

"How do you live like that?"

"I do what I'm good at. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure anymore. Maybe I should go back."

"They'd only kill ya." Jazz said bluntly. "One word o'warnin' outta ya an' they'd be onto ya. That ain't no way to help anyone." He paused. "Y'don't have t'live wit'the regret, y'know. CB's got a friend who can take those mem'ries away. Leave ya free t'concentrate on the here an' now."

"Is that what happened to you?"

"Whoever I was before ain't important. Ain't no-one else who can do what I do the way I do, an' what I do needs doin'."

"But is that enough?"

"Is for me."

Mirage shook his head.

"Not for me. I will remember everything. And I will do everything I can to save the Towers."

Jazz frowned.

"Be careful, mech. You break orders an' it ain't the Cons you'll have to watch out for."

"I know."

"An' what happens if ev'rythin' y'can do just ain't enough?"

"Then at least I will have tried."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The priest.


	17. The commander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fits with SoaL part 12, chapter 6 and with the side story _Meister_.

The morning his life changed was the same morning he met the mech who would eventually replace him. Not that he knew that at the time, nor that he even knew it was going to be a particularly memorable orn.

He came online feeling groggy and uncomfortable from the previous night's overindulgence in poor quality energon. They had been sent the poorly mixed batch to celebrate being the only unit to meet their targets for the quarter and in spite of its taste they had drunk it happily enough. This morning, though, he was thinking perhaps it had not been a good idea to drink _all_ of it.

A cube saved for this morning would at least have helped take his mind off the after-effects.

He would have been perfectly content to stay on his berth, pretending the galaxy did not exist, but the charging ports were on timers and besides he had an appointment in a groon, so he had to get up. Dragging himself unwillingly to his pedes he stumbled into the corridor and down to the washracks.

The cleanser supplies were still low and the washing fluids unheated and the only washing implements available were a scrubbing brush that looked as though it had been used to clean the drains and a scrap of linkmesh cloth that was practically disintegrating as he watched. He used the latter anyway, no point letting someone else have the pleasure - based on recent experience it could be a long time before their supplies came in again. No-one came this far out unless they had to.

Feeling somewhat more ready to face the orn, he emerged from the washracks and walked through the compound towards his office. Most of the others he saw nodded politely and greeted him as he went. He noted the ones who did not, even amongst those who _need_ not, and they were easily categorised: they were all new. The ones who had been here longer knew that he was different, that he did not live or work by the same rules as his peers.

He felt some satisfaction, seeing his assistants waiting for him as he walked into his office. No doubt they had scrambled to get here before him when they realised he was up - they had still been charging when he had left the barracks.

The morning routine was soothingly mundane as he read over reports and approved or rejected work assignments. One of the aides brought him a cube of energon and he finished that and got through two more before it was time to go.

Given the choice, he would avoid this. He had explained time and again how important his work was, but the higher ups were only interested in results, the quicker the better. That, and not straying too far from conformity.

The irony was a joke. If he had been ready to _conform_ he would most certainly not be here now and nor would anyone else.

"Something amusing?" a snide voice asked as he stepped out into the courtyard.

"Everything's amusing." he retorted. "Don't you think?"

"Lets just get on with this." the third member of the group growled, already in a bad mood.

Perhaps he had also over-imbibed?

Dismissing the thought, the commander led the way through the facility, pausing at the regular spots so they could assess how things were going. That was why they were here, after all. To audit his unit, to ensure that his 'extra' duties were not compromising the core need.

"Alright, that's enough." the first said finally, after a full joor's inspection, just short of the scheduled stop to see his new trainees practicing their skills.

He did not push the matter. In some ways, the longer it took for the middle layer of bureaucracy to pay attention to him, the more sway he would have with the upper levels.

Strangely, that thought was not as pleasing this morning as it usually was.

He waited as they left, until they were out of sight, then turned back towards the complex and paused to try to see it from an outside perspective. So they controlled this cybertonium refinery, so what? That did not take someone of his skill to manage and it certainly did not take this many soldiers to adequately defend it, not unless they were incompetent. It was completely obvious that his unit had a second agenda, a second purpose.

Shaking his head, he began to walk back along the causeway, met halfway back by one of his most trusted subordinates, Concave.

"Well that's that done for awhile." he commented lightly. "Has the next delivery come in yet?"

"A groon ago. But we've got a problem."

"With one of the new ones?" he asked, surprised.

Usually the mechs who arrived here were compliant, ready to do whatever was needed.

"You'd better come and see. I've never seen anything like it."

He followed, once again noticing that he felt odd - uneasy? - but dismissing it. A challenge to break him from the routine; that's what he needed.

* * *

A challenge indeed, he mused half a groon later as he observed the newcomer.

"You say he has been through the process twice already, and he still doesn't comply?"

The technician grovelled.

"My apologies, sir. The machine, perhaps it has developed a fault, we are investigating..."

"There's an easy way to find out." he interrupted, gesturing to two of the more junior technicians. "Hook up our friend here."

"No! Please, no, I'm loyal to Megatron, I swear it, I'll find the fault..."

"But we don't know if there _is_ a fault." he pointed out sweetly. "This will tell us."

Within moments the technician was connected, and the device activated. He grimaced faintly. Bad enough that the thing was the stuff of nightmares, adjusting a mech's programming, but did it have to be given such a ridiculous name? The 'Robosmasher'? Who had come up with that?

The process was quick and he stepped up in front of the now silent former-technician.

"What is your name, soldier?"

"Smudge."

"What is your function?"

"To serve Lord Megatron."

"What is your duty?"

"To destroy Autobots."

"And to obey _my_ orders."

"And to obey your orders."

"And who am I?"

"Base commander Curveball."

"Good. Go and join your training class."

No real loss, he had never liked the technician anyway. Pointing at one of the others at random - it hardly mattered which, really - he appointed them to the position of supervisor and turned his attention back to the remaining captive.

Two cycles of the Robosmasher and he remained defiantly unaffected. What _was_ he? A drone? No, not that, the scans had confirmed the presence of a spark. So what, then? A spy? A particularly well prepared one, if he was that. Or maybe he meant ill-prepared, since this mech had gotten caught.

"Clear the building." he ordered. "I want to interrogate the prisoner myself. Anyone I find still here in 48 clicks will have their turn like Smudge."

Everyone rushed out, taking the threat seriously. As they should, he never made idle threats. Pacing casually forward he moved through to lab proper and closed the door, then crossed his arms and stared at their wayward prisoner.

"So can I go now?" the mech asked insolently.

"Hardly." Curveball snorted. "What's your name?"

"Depends on who I'm talking to."

"A prospective employer."

The look he received was flat with disbelief.

"I'm no soldier. And your machine didn't work on me."

"Any idea why?"

"It's your machine, not mine. Maybe you're not using it right."

"But it's worked on every other mech we've used it on."

This time he just got a casual shrug. Curveball leaned forward.

"What if you didn't have to be a Decepticon? What if you could be an Autobot?"

"Spy on them, you mean?"

There was a faint hint of interest in the mech's tone.

"Maybe. Or maybe really be one."

Now he got a reaction.

"You're thinking of defecting? Mech they'll tear you apart before you leave the compound!"

"Only if they catch me. Which they won't."

"Oh and you think your staff aren't catching this whole conversation on camera? Congratulations on being a moron: even if you're just trying to trick me, they'll have you executed for treason."

In fact, it was standard procedure that there be _no_ recording in this room because if the Autobots ever got hold of the footage it would be proof they could use against Megatron. Although in all honesty the conflict was developing well past the point where that would matter anymore.

"What if I could prove to you I'm genuine?"

The mech hesitated.

"Why bother? What do you want from me?"

"Do you know what I do?"

"You're a Decepticon. You're a base commander. You're..."

"I'm the spymaster." Curveball cut him off. "I'm in charge of special ops."

His captive looked unimpressed.

"Just means they'll hack you before they smelt you, if you ask me."

"They'd try if they could. But they won't catch me. You, though. You could work for me. You've got good skills, and I could use them. The Autobots could use them."

"A sales pitch now? Primus. I didn't realise boring your captives into submission was part of the torture - I wouldn't have bothered coming at all."

"Why did you come here?"

A shrug.

"Easy target."

"Easy?"

"For me."

"See? You have the skills..."

"No." the mech said firmly. "I've got the skills, but I don't want to be part of this war."

"But think of the challenge of it."

The mech gave him a long look, then glanced down at his hands which were still bound to the chair.

"Okay, I'll do you a deal. You want me to trust you? Then trust me. Let me go. Show me how you're going to stop them just killing you on the spot for treason. Then I'll consider the offer."

"Not much of a deal, I'm doing all the work. How about this: I deal with my ex-friends here so I can go do what I'm planning, and in exchange you let me take you to someone to have your processors scanned to figure out how you're beating the Robosmasher. And think before you answer this time. If you refuse, I'll just have someone less competent do it right here and now."

* * *

Back in the control hub, his prisoner-now-ally still restrained in the Robosmasher room, he walked slowly along the bank of consoles.

"Did you get it sorted?" Concave asked.

"Yes."

Concave was one of the few who made him nearly hesitate. Nearly. The mech had been an adept and competent assistant since long before Megatron started causing trouble in the ranks. But he was military through and through, and would see it as his duty to stop him.

Up until this morning he would have said the same about himself. Something had changed. What was it? Yesterday he had been perfectly happy to carry on where he was, today he was planning to defect. And not just planning, he intended to go through with it however high the cost.

He had gotten drunk yesterday; well that was nothing new. That scientist Asher had been visiting again and trying to convince him of something outlandish but he could not quite remember what at the moment.

In any case, it was what it was. He had never been indecisive. Having made up his mind on this course of action, he would act on it.

"Concave, assemble the unit in the courtyard - I have an announcement to make. Gather the civilians too."

"Including the new trainees?"

"Yes."

He stood in place as most of the mechs around him filed out. Most, but not all. He turned and glared at the comms mech still at his station.

"What part of _assemble in the courtyard_ don't you understand?"

"But sir..."

It was standard protocol to leave someone monitoring the systems, no matter what else was going on. That was what the mech was trying to say. But Curveball just growled and he fled. Coward. He should have stuck to protocol even if it meant being punished for insubordination.

"Weak." Curveball muttered to himself.

Maybe that was why he had changed his mind. The Autobots were weak but that was to be expected given their background. Weakness in a military mech was unacceptable. If he had to be surrounded by weakness it might as well be justified.

Taking one last look around the room, he moved to the Teletran console and began typing in commands. The base computer did not like it, trying to warn him about dangers to the unit but he overrode those warnings and eventually turned off the computer's speakers.

~Sir? Everyone's assembled.~

Good old Concave.

He left the main console and went to a security panel. First he closed off all the exits, including adding the forceshield above them so they could not fly away. He ignored the attempts to make contact. Then he activated the anti-intrusion methods: the power surges, the sonic lasers, the flamethrowers. It was not a pretty death, but he forced himself to watch it all. This was his doing, and he would take responsibility for it.

When all was finally still, he checked the progress of the virus on the mainframe and then headed out to track down the few who had escaped. A maintenance bot here, a guard there. These he shot himself. They could not escape, with the base locked down. At least not quickly enough to avoid him. He also placed timer charges throughout the base. Twice as many has he would justify for a mission, but he wanted to be absolutely sure that no-one could piece together exactly what had happened.

When the unpleasant task of ensuring they were alone was complete, he headed back to the lab and retrieved his still-nameless ally. Ally? Was it too soon to say that? Probably, but it felt right.

The mech gave a low appreciative whistle as they walked around - and over - some of the bodies, heading for the control centre again.

"Seems t'me you're a bit ruthless to be an Autobot." he commented.

"Seems to me you're taking this remarkably well." Curveball shot back, checking again on the progress of the virus.

Most important of all were the activation and suicide codes for the deep cover agents. Their identities must not be known, their codes never used. The virus was doing good work, but he was not going to take any chances. Placing a last few charges, he gestured to the exit.

"Time to go."

"Don't have t'tell _me_ twice. But how do we get out, with everythin' locked down?"

"Same way you got in."

It was a gamble, that this mech could get them out safely and in time. Curveball himself knew of no such escape route. The mech looked at him evenly for a long moment, then gave a bright laugh and began to lead the way.

* * *

The explosion was large enough that it shook the ground under their pedes when they had been travelling for more than a groon. They were in the city, now, in a busy street and the civilians around them reacted with panic and confusion but he kept on walking. His companion looked across at him.

"Don't you think you should do something about a disguise? Your bosses aren't gonna be that happy wit'ya right now."

"Let me worry about me. Come on, it's this way."

He had only visited Asher's lab once, and that had been over a vorn ago. The scientist was not always in town but he was the one mech Curveball trusted to do this. Why? He was not sure, but it was true.

His companion had stuck with him. Strange, that. There was nothing to stop him slipping away in the crowds here; Curveball was certain he had the skill to do it without being caught. And having any kind of processor scan was risky, yet he continued along. Keeping his word? An Autobot trait, and not an admirable one, yet the mech said he was no Autobot and Curveball was inclined to believe him.

Finally reaching their destination, he signalled at the door and was disappointed to see a femme greet them. He knew she lived here, knew she was an assistant of some kind, but he did not even know her designation.

"I'm looking for Asher." he announced.

"He's not here right now. What do you want?"

"None of your business. We'll wait."

"Well you're going to be waiting awhile. He probably won't be back for a vorn or so - he never stays long when he comes and he's been here for decaorns this time."

"Where's he gone?"

"Don't know."

"So much for your plan." his new recruit huffed.

"Then we change the plan." he retorted, focusing on the femme. "I need somone to scan this mech's processor. Can you do it?"

She tilted her head to the side considering, then nodded.

"Come in."

"So now I'm going to be scanned by some random femme you don't even know?"

"Shut up."

"Well at least she's good looking."

The femme smiled sweetly at him.

"Want a kiss, sweetie? Then you'll need to be good."

"I'm much better at being bad." the recruit offered with a smirk, though he sank gracefully into the seat she indicated.

To his obvious but happy surprise the femme straddled his lap and leaned in close as though to give him the kiss she had promised. But as her hands slid over his shoulders, she applied a concealed shockrod to the base of his helm and he slumped temporarily offline. Ruthless, Curveball noted approvingly, settling back against the wall as she set to work.

A groon later she paced over to him with a bright grin.

"All done. He's wiped and ready to go, I just need the name you want to give him."

"Wiped?" Curveball echoed, displeased.

"Sure." she bobbed her head. "Wasn't easy, either - I should've made you pay up front. The things he's done to his own programming and wiring! Anyway, I can see what you were trying to do, using the robosmasher on him, but it wasn't going to work. He tweaked his own protocols vorns ago to fool the Enforcers' behavioural tests. He's not an Autobot, though, and he wasn't trying to spy on you, he was just playing. Didn't take you into account though, did he? Actually he admires you for that."

This was not what he had wanted, he just wanted to know who the mech was working for. Still, he would make the best of the situation.

"I wanted him to work for me - he's of no value if you've ruined him."

"Oh he's fine. A bit of his early data got corrupted initially before I worked out how to get in even _with_ his firewalls down, but he's mostly intact. Enough for your purposes. Thing is, he's forgotten his designation. Which is Rimshot, by the way. Do you want me to give it back to him?"

Curveball considered.

"Call him Meister. And give him a Kaonic background."

"Kaon it is. Oh and Curveball? Unless you want me to spread the word about you killing your entire base and defecting, you're going to pay me well. _Very_ well. Think about that while I'm busy."

* * *

Curveball watched the mech come online. It happened quicker than most would manage, but very little about this mech surprised him now. A natural ops agent, not allied with anyone so no-one would come looking and there was no risk of deep coding affecting him. He would be fabulous.

"Designation?" he barked as the mech's helm raised to look at him.

"Meister." the response came promptly. "CB, why's the femme dead on the floor? I never got my kiss. You're developin' a bad habit o'killin' mecha, m'mech, an' the Autobots ain't gonna like it at all."

"'CB'?" he echoed, caught by surprise.

Meister snorted, standing up.

"If you're lookin' for the kind o'grovellin' respect your staff gave ya, forget it. Now look. I've done what you asked, so'm I free to go?"

Slag that femme, had she not formed the allegiance protocols properly? But if she was not that good, where had the name and accent come from?

"Where would you go?"

Meister crossed his arms, looking at him thoughtfully.

"I ain't no rule-bound Autobot." he said after a moment. "But I ain't got no love for the Cons, neither. You promise me some fun, an' I'll come wit'ya, wherever you're goin'."

"I'm going straight to Iacon."

"Then lets move on out. After what you did this mornin', I think a few mecha gonna be lookin' for ya, an' not in a good way."

* * *

_Iacon, three orns later_

"I'm seeking asylum from the Prime." Curveball said firmly.

The guards looked at each other uneasily, their weapons lowering as they considered his request.

"Who are you?" one of them asked.

"Designation: Curveball. Rank: Unit Commander, 3rd Division, Special Operations."

They stared in shock, then one of them laughed.

"Yeah, right. Funny. Come on, then, follow me."

To his surprise, that was as difficult as it was. They truly did not believe he was who he claimed to be and they assumed he was harmless. If he had realised they were so incredibly stupid he could have ended the whole war vorns ago. Unfortunately he truly _was_ looking to defect, so he could not toy with them as he wanted to.

He was led through narrow streets thronging with mecha. This base had been built as a fort to house up to fifty military mechs; according to the intelligence he had gathered prior to coming here it now acted as a safe haven for over seven _hundred_ civilians. Private quarters once intended to be home to a single mech had soon had to hold four and then eight and then more. Berths had been torn out to create more floorspace and there were permanent queues to reach the charging ports and get a groon or so of charge. His external analysis of that situation had been that it was unsustainable, yet as he walked through them he saw no signs of rebellion. The refugees generally looked at his guide with gratitude. It was pathetic.

Rounding a corner he found himself looking at a medic working to ease the convulsions of a mech, the problem likely caused by the ingestion of some bad fuel source. Did they have no medical centre in which to treat the ill? Or was that reserved for the Autobots themselves? He had no intention of being treated this way himself, that was certain.

At the end of this street they came to the fort proper, but the two mechs on guard simply nodded to his guide and motioned them through without a word. The door closed behind them, leaving him in the shocking silence and cleanliness of the command corridors. A different world, and much more familiar to him. His own base had been like this. Well except for the fact that even his staff would never just let a stranger into a secure area without restraints.

Quite honestly it was a miracle that the Autobots had survived for this long!

They finally reached a room being guarded by another pair of mechs, and one of these finally questioned them.

"Who's that?"

"Seeking asylum. Prime in?"

"Yeah. You sure he's safe?"

"Are any of them?"

"True. Okay, go on through?"

The whole thing was insane. He should not have been allowed in here. They had not so much as searched him. He could be an assassin! Yet here he was, being led straight in to see the Prime.

The room was quite spacious, a large round table taking up the centre but the Autobots present were all over on a set of benches to one side, talking earnestly. They stopped when Curveball and his guide entered and the guide announced him as an asylum seeker. The Prime rose - and Primus but he was big, even bigger than Megatron - and moved towards them. Loomed over them, in fact.

"What is your name, friend?"

"My name is Curveball." he responded, and was gratified to see several of these mecha stiffen in alarm. "And I'm not your friend yet. But I will be."

"Curveball?" a green military mech demanded, striding forward.

Kup, Curveball guessed from his intelligence briefings.

"Yes."

"Optimus, we need to put him in the brig - he's Decepticon command level! The things he could tell us...!"

"He came seeking asylum." the Prime intoned. "Is that right?"

"I came to be an Autobot."

"Prime, he's lying." a red mech insisted. Ironhide, perhaps? "Why would a Decepticon commander come here like this?"

"A good question, Hide. Why _would_ a commander come here? Unless he was genuine. Have you abandoned your unit, Curveball?"

"They won't bother you." he promised wryly. "And for the record your friends are right. I'm dangerous. I'm also the only thing that's going to save your cause from disintegrating completely. What you need, Prime, is to start taking this war seriously, and I'm just the mech to help you do that."

The medic Ratchet choked and Ironhide growled, but Curveball was not distracted by either of them.

"You need to organise better, and you need to be more proactive. All this defensive stuff's fine until Megatron decides to siege you. He's got the ordnance to batter Iacon constantly for vorns if he just concentrates it here. Your shields will hold up for awhile, but for vorns without weakening? Not likely. Particularly when you're running out of resources and energon and taking in every mech with a sob story of being a refugee."

"Like you?" Kup asked pointedly.

"Absolutely!" Curveball agreed. "I shouldn't've been allowed through the gates without some proper background checking, and there's no way in the pit I should've been allowed anywhere near the Prime or your precious medic. What if I was an assassin? What if all I was doing was waiting to get close enough to take out the Autobot command?"

"I will not turn away mecha who ask for help." Optimus told him.

"Then that'll get you killed, and the rest of us with you." the ex-Con spat back. "This isn't a game and it isn't politics. There's no-one left with the power to stop Megatron if he chooses to blow up the whole slagging solar system. He doesn't respect the Matrix and neither do most of the mecha working for him. Not anymore. The Council brought this on themselves with all those rulings against the military-mechs. And where are they now? Oh, right, they're dead. Like we will be if you don't start doing what needs to be done."

"And just what do you imagine needs to be done?" Optimus asked him. "Violence only begets violence. Bad enough that we have armed civilians and trained them to shoot..."

"You'll need to do more than that for a start. You need a hierarchy and you need to start planning. Get some intell, get someone who can work out some tactics, and work out a chain of command. You know why Megatron's so effective? He doesn't do most of this stuff himself, he's got others who do it. You need a core of advisors, but then you need sub-commanders to take responsibility for smaller teams so not everything has to wait for your permission."

"Power has a tendency to corrupt."

"What's worse? Corruption, or annihilation? I know what _my_ answer is."

"Then why come to the losing side?" Kup demanded.

"Because I like a challenge."

"Hah!"

"And because he's insane." he continued smoothly. "And that means no-one's safe. Even if he gets rid of all of you, it doesn't mean he won't turn on us. Someone's got to stop this now, before it gets completely out of hand."

There was a long silence, then Optimus nodded.

"Very well, I will consider your advice. You may wait outside, now."

Curveball huffed and turned away in disgust, striding out without even a hint of the deferential bow that he should have given. Stalking past the glaring guards, he moved over to an alcove and leaned against the wall, staring defiantly back at them. They did not like him, but he could care less. What mattered was the Prime and what _he_ thought. Turning his attention to a tight-banded channel from the short distance transmitter he had placed in the briefing room, he listened in. Was his approach going to work, or was he about to become a prisoner?

* * *

They held their silence as the outspoken visitor left the room, and Ratchet watched as Optimus looked at each of them in turn.

"Well?" Prime asked when the door was closed again.

"It's exactly what we've been telling you for the past twenty vorns." Kup pointed out.

"All I'm trying to do is protect what's left of Iacon."

"But we need to think bigger." Kup insisted. "Megatron isn't satisfied with Vos and Kaon and Protihex and he won't be satisfied with Iacon. He wants control of everyone and everything and he'll kill everyone in his way to get it."

"He can't kill _everyone_." Optimus argued, but he sounded tired and unconvincing. "And I can't _protect_ everyone."

"That's right, we can't." Kup agreed. "But we can recruit. We can take this seriously. And we can help get anyone who doesn't want to fight _off_ Cybertron."

"Cybertron's our home. I can't ask them to leave..."

"We have to, Prime." Ironhide spoke up. "They're being slaughtered here, and we just can't stop it. If we can get them away we'd have a clear field to fight on and Megatron would lose his hostage advantage."

Optimus shook his head.

"This isn't about escalating the war. Or it shouldn't be. Ratchet, you agree with me, don't you?"

Ratchet frowned.

"Actually I think they're right."

"What!"

"The refugees are living in conditions we wouldn't've allowed for drones before the war. Every orn there's more of them, and it's getting worse. They're not getting enough charge or enough fuel; there are sparklings being formed who fade because there're no materials to build a frame for them; there are viruses spreading everywhere faster than we can decode them. They can't leave the dome without risking death, but just staying's killing them too. We have to get them away."

"I didn't form the Autobots to try to replicate a military force!"

"Then why did you?" Kup asked. "Prime, protection and defence isn't going to be enough. We're losing ground constantly and Megatron isn't even focusing on us yet."

"But as soon as we start presenting a real threat, he will." Optimus predicted. "And if we start attacking then we're no better than the Decepticons."

"So it's worth letting everyone die without even trying to defend ourselves?" Ratchet asked.

Optimus shook his head tiredly, looking around the room.

"Well. It seems I'm outvoted. Ratchet, I need you to make some cosmetic changes to Curveball so he won't terrify our troops. His optics and faction symbol, obviously, but also removal of his inbuilt weaponry and changeover to our own systems. Kup, Ironhide: talk to me about command structures. If it will bring a swifter end to this crisis then perhaps it is a necessary evil after all."

* * *

Out in the corridor, Curveball snorted softly to himself. A swift end? Prime was a dreamer, this would go on for at least decades, probably centuries. It was only just starting. The only way to end it quickly was to surrender to Megatron.

Why had he come to join this dying cause, he wondered fretfully. It was not like him to be so impulsive, particularly not with something so important. And yet, since he had onlined this morning he had just _known_ he needed to help the Prime.

Maybe it was Primus's will, he considered, laughing at his own folly. Whatever it was, he was committed now. He had destroyed all his own databases, killed off all his own staff. All that remained were the deep cover agents, and without the command keys no-one would ever be able to activate them. They would stay working quietly in the role they had been given, never knowing that it was all a ruse.

Meister, though. Meister was his one hidden ploy. He would have to be cautious, he could not be sure how loyal he was, but he was the start of a new team.

All he had to do was find a way to hide the agent in plain sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The commander.


	18. The warlord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fits with SoaL part 19, chapter 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Guess who's been interfering right from the start.

The guest waited until the guard had gone, leaving him alone with the still-bound prisoner. Once he was sure they were alone he settled himself on a bench.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"Some lackey of the Council."

"My name is..."

The prisoner cut him off.

"Do I look like I care? You're a weakling civilian and I've got better things to do than talk to you."

"Such as what? You're incarcerated here for brawling for the next nine orns."

"I happen to like it here."

"Well that at least would appear to be true. You have quite a record."

"What would you know?"

"I've been looking into your history. You're a fighter. Powerful. Decisive. A mech like you could go a long way."

"Not me. I won't play to their rules - I'll never be promoted."

"So find a different path."

"What does that mean?"

"This... all this... is just one answer. With new leadership, new vision, things could be different."

"And you would have me be that leader?" the prisoner asked, then laughed heartily before finishing with a sigh. "Mech, you're insane. The rules are there to be followed. Even I know that much."

"Yes, but what if you were the one making the rules?"

"Not going to happen."

"Not with your current attitude, no. But what if you were more powerful than the entire command element? What if you were _outside_ the military?"

"Be some kind of politician you mean? Frag that."

"There are other options for someone with the right kind of determination."

The prisoner cocked his head to the side, curious.

"What are you saying?"

"What if you were Prime?"

"You want to make _me_ Prime?"

"Yes."

"Me."

"That's what I said."

"Impossible. The Matrix was destroyed when Sentinel Prime died."

"Not destroyed. Hidden. I know how to find it."

"You? How would you know?"

"I have my ways. "

The prisoner leaned back, peering at him, reassessing him.

"And just why would I want to be a Prime anyway?" the question came finally. "A weakling figurehead working for the Council and the priests."

"Not at all. The Prime has great power. And there have been military Primes before."

"There was a war to fight when Straxus was in power."

"There could be again."

"What do you mean?"

"The legends speak of the enemy of five faces..."

"Don't spout rubbish. Give me a better reason."

The guest paused, then set that argument aside for another time.

"Very well. Think of what you could solve. The High Council dislikes the military, you know. It won't be long before they start restricting your kind. It's not that hard to find excuses if you're looking for them. In fact, I would wager that within a century they'll start actively trying to reduce your numbers."

"They're already reviewing the sparkling numbers." the prisoner admitted grudgingly.

"You see? They're all civilians, selfish and weak. You could rule them, you could _control_ them."

"They wouldn't accept me."

"They would if you were Prime. If you had the Matrix."

"Perhaps. You're offering me a lot. Tell me, friend, what do _you_ get out of this? You do this for me, and what do you want in return?"

"Not much. Just your word that you will always remain on Cybertron."

"Why?"

"The Matrix must be connected to Primus."

"I don't believe in Primus."

That casual remark floored him.

"How can you not believe in him!"

"Easily. He doesn't exist, it's a story they tell civilian sparklings to keep them docile, that's all."

"Primus is real!" the guest spluttered.

"Then you're as much a fool as I first thought. But still one who talks a good deal. I've decided to take you up on your offer. Make me a Prime. I'll be the most powerful Prime there has ever been. We will conquer the galaxy!"

"No." the guest shook his head slowly. "No I think I've made a mistake. A mech who doesn't believe in Primus can never bear the Matrix."

"Maybe once I have the Matrix I'll believe. It could convince me. Don't the priests say that no unbeliever is so lost that Primus won't welcome them back if they call on him?"

The guest was still uneasy.

"They do."

"Then you see, it makes no difference. If Primus exists, he'll find a way to make me believe."

"Primus _does_ exist."

"Okay." the prisoner shrugged. "Whatever you say. So you'll get me the Matrix, then?"

"Do you swear you will stay on Cybertron?"

"Of course."

"No. I think you're lying to me. This was a bad idea."

"It was _your_ idea. And now that you've got my attention, you needn't think I'm just going to forget. What did you say your name was?"

"Al...sher."

"Alsher?"

" _Asher_. You can call me Asher."

"Very well. I will call you Asher. And you will call me _great lord_. Megatron Prime. Yes. I do like the sound of that. None of this stupid renaming - I will change the rules, I will be the next Prime and the entire galaxy will bow to me. And Asher - or whatever your name truly is - you can be assured: if you try to cheat me of what you have promised I will see Cybertron _burn_. Believe me. I will be Prime, or no-one will. _That_ I swear in the name of Primus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of The warlord.


End file.
